


Carry It In My Heart

by TheSickenerHits



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Bad Jokes, Bad Puns, Class Differences, F/F, Family Drama, Fluff and Smut, Literary References & Allusions, Meeting the Parents, Nicky's extensive vintage porn collection, Oral Sex, Third Wheels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-05-16 06:37:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14806232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSickenerHits/pseuds/TheSickenerHits
Summary: Alex and Piper both teach at the same school. Alex is falling fast, but Piper is determined to keep their relationship hidden from her family. How long can it last? (This is a sequel to Carry Your Heart, but also works as a standalone too. Recap in first chapter.) Plenty of smut, some jokes, and a load of largely unnecessary literary references. Let's have a laugh.





	1. Hold My Home

**Author's Note:**

> … Aaaand we're back.
> 
> Welcome to the sequel for Carry Your Heart!
> 
> If you haven't read that yet, don't panic - here's a potted synopsis: Alex lives with Nicky in a big ass house Nicky inherited from her wealthy mum, and Piper shares an apartment with Polly, who isn't hugely keen on Alex. Alex and Piper are English teachers in a prestigious private girls school. They had a rough start, but they figured stuff out, and this is set a few months later. (The timeline is somewhat transient.)
> 
> I got lots of message and reviews between this fic and the last one, so if you made any requests, they'll be in here somewhere. If you have any more requests, I've only written the first few chapters of this story, so feel free get in touch if there's something you'd like to see. My tumblr is the-sickener-hits.
> 
> Allons-y.

 

Alex took a deep, shuddering breath, her fingers curling into the bedsheets, knuckles white.

She released an achingly soft moan, and Piper's laugh echoed from between her thighs, head lifting for a brief moment to reprimand her.

"Sshhh!"

Polly was asleep next door, and Piper didn't want to run the risk of waking her during their penultimate night as housemates.

Alex had driven over  _just_ late enough to miss Polly, so it was imperative that she stayed under the radar.  
She particularly didn't want to wake Polly when it was Alex's own fault that Piper was moving out in two days. At least, that's how Polly saw it.

"Jesus, Pipes _..._ "  
Piper grinned to herself, tongue pressing deeper into Alex as she followed her girlfriend's whispered adulation.  
Alex began to writhe, and Piper pinned her hips to the mattress, which only served to make Alex worse.

She hated having to be quiet.  
She hated having to be still even more.  
(But by her own admission, she loved both conditions too. The only problem was that Piper knew it, and she was definitely using it to her advantage tonight.)

Alex was sweet in her mouth, and Piper could tell the end was near as her girlfriend's thighs began to tremble.  
Piper pressed Alex to the bed with her forearm, her other hand reaching up to smother Alex's moans as her back arched away from the sheets beneath her.

If Alex had loved and loathed being silenced before, this amplified it a thousand times. Her fingers curled into fists as Piper's palm eclipsed her whimpers, pushing her over the edge with her tongue in all the right places.

Silence fell, with nothing but the sound of Alex's shallow breathing to span the distance between them.

Piper crawled up the bed, kissing the softest parts of Alex's body as she passed them, leaving traces of their last night in this bed to be washed away in their inevitable post-sex shower in an hour or so.

Alex brushed a few stray strands of hair away from Piper's face when she drew level, tasting herself on Piper's mouth when their lips met.  
For someone who hadn't ever been down on a woman just a few months ago, Alex had to give her credit: Piper was a fast learner.

"Was that okay?"  
Alex smirked hazily, limbs leaden as she lifted an arm to brush hair out of her face. "You don't need to ask every time."  
"I like to ask." Piper planted another kiss on Alex's cheek. "I like the feedback. I like knowing how well I'm doing."

Alex rolled into her side so that they were facing one another, running her hand along the topography of Piper's body: the curve of her breasts, the dip of her waist, the rise of her ass.  
"Want me to grade you?"  
When she reached the soft skin of Piper's outer thigh, she dipped inwards, trailing her fingers through the blonde curls gently.  
Piper breath hitched a little. "What, a midterm report?" She laughed quietly, fighting to pretend she could ignore Alex's teasing.  
Alex watched the way Piper's breathing hitched, the steady rise and fall of her chest losing its rhythm. "Unless you'd prefer some more  _practical_  feedback."  
"Such as?" Piper was coming undone, Alex's mouth hot against her collarbones as she spread Piper's thighs and slipped inside.  
"How about a demonstration?" Alex murmured into Piper's neck, pulling Piper to her.

There would be time for sleep later.

* * *

"That's a lot of shit."  
Alex stood with her arms crossed, and said nothing in reply.  
"I mean," Nicky continued. "I'm happy that she's moving in and all, but what is she, a prime-time television documentary hoarder?"  
Alex relented. "I think we probably live in sparse conditions and she has a normal amount of person-stuff. It's not like she…"

Alex tailed off as Piper lumbered through the door with yet another box of books, grinning wildly.

"Can you give me a hand?"  
Nicky elbowed Alex in the ribs. "Yeah, Stretch. You're the butch in this relationship; give the girl a hand."  
Piper added the box she was carrying to the ever growing pile, and looked vaguely affronted. "I can be butch."  
The two onlookers made a noise that epitomised the concept of skepticism.  
Alex raised an eyebrow. "I'll grab some stuff from the car."

Piper followed the brunette towards the exit, and Nicky sidled back into the kitchen.  
She was happy to have Piper living with them - the huge house  _had_  felt empty with only two occupants - and it would be nice to spend her limited downtime with someone a little more sociable.  
Alex's tendency to shut herself in her room for hours wasn't exactly ideal, and while Nicky liked spending time alone too, it was easier to keep the tough stuff at bay when she surrounded herself with people.  
She rummaged around for coffee-making components before taking a seat at the table.

Thumbing through her phone, she found Morello's number.  
It had been one of the longest semesters of Nicky's life, and they were finally -  _sort of_  - dating.  
Lorna refused to define the relationship, but Nicky was happy with the compromise they'd reached: they were a couple in all but name.

_Free tonight?_ She tapped out idly.  
She had been semi-seriously joking about taking the diminutive brunette out on a date for weeks, but Lorna's fear of them being seen together in public, " _all romantic like_ ", terrified her.

Message sent, she finished her coffee and returned to her room.  
Morello would come around, hopefully both literally and figuratively. All she had to do was wait.

* * *

Alex eyed Piper's open suitcase over her open book, watching Piper unfold and refold items of clothing like a laboratory experiment.  
She had lived with partners before, but Piper was so far proving to be an oddly antithetical mix of horribly disorganised and anally retentive.  
It made Alex's head spin. But then, Piper usually did that anyway.

"What're you reading?" The younger woman asked as she busied about, closing another newly-full draw and opening the one above it instead.  
"Fun Home."  
"That Alison Bechdel book? The one they made the musical about?"  
"Yeah." Alex closed the book. "You haven't read it?"  
Piper shook her head as she tossed the now-empty box she'd been unpacking aside. "Nope."  
"You'd better get up on your lesbian literature." Alex teased. "You're a  _homo_  now."  
"I like to think of myself as 'label free'."  
"Okay, but you'll never get your gay card if you can't  _at least_  quote Sappho when asked."

Piper grinned and turned away, waiting until Alex had returned to her reading before she replied.

" _Again Desire agitates me, the limb-loosener / bitter-sweet, inescapable, creeping on all fours..."_  
She watched as Alex slid her book closed, tilting her head to one side before shuffling off the end of the bed towards her.  
"Are quoting Sappho at me, Miss Chapman?"  
"I might be."

Alex continued to advance across the room, smirking.  
"You are  _very_ hot."  
"And also cute. Don't forget cute."  
The brunette wrapped her arms around Piper when she reached her, kissing her softly. " _And_ cute."

"Are you hungry?" Piper was asking about dinner, but Alex's eyes affixed themselves firmly to her lips, and the younger woman's heart fluttered beneath her ribcage.  
"I could eat."  
"I mean actual food."  
"That's what I was thinking..."

Her hands began to wander from Piper's waist down to her hips, before roaming across her ass.  
Piper giggled, but couldn't push aside how many hours it had been since they'd last eaten. It was early evening now and her stomach was growing impatient.

Her line of inquiry hadn't worked, so she aimed for Alex's more academic nature instead.  
" _Wine comes in at the mouth, and love comes in at the eye / That's all we shall know for truth, before we grow old and die / I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh._ "

It worked: Alex balked and pulled back, eyebrow raised.  
"The Sappho won you points, but you're not cute when you quote Yeats."  
"No?" Piper asked coyly, tongue pressed firmly in her cheek.  
"No. Yeats is  _not_  cute."  
"I thought you liked cantankerous old Irishmen who died surrounded by their many wives and mistresses."  
"I do not."  
"Oh. Can we get food then?"  
Alex grew wise. "Sure, kid."

* * *

Alex fumbled around in the kitchen, opening cupboards seemingly aimlessly while she waited for the water to boil in the pan on the stove.

This was her first meal with Piper since she moved in; she didn't want to mess it up.

Alex had opted for simple (as Piper hadn't been able to decide what she wanted), and set to stirring the tomato sauce she'd thrown together, as she wondered if they had anything else to add to their spaghetti.  
Her Mom had taught her enough for Alex to be a passable cook, but she wasn't exactly confident in the kitchen. She'd always been more focused on devouring whatever her Mom had made - which was always delicious when made from scratch, however rare that had been - instead of thinking about the recipe.

Nicky drifted into the room. "What're we making kids?"  
Alex looked up, glad for the distraction. "I'm making spaghetti. You want some?"  
"Depends. You gonna burn it like last time?"  
Piper guffawed. "How do you even burn spaghetti?"  
Alex bristled, gesturing with the wooden spoon in her hand, a smattering of sauce flecks hitting the worktop. "I was distracted!"  
"You were sexting." Nicky tasted some of the stray sauce on the tip of her finger before turning to Piper. "She was sexting  _you_ , actually So really, I think she's trying to say it's  _your_  fault she burnt the pasta."

Nicky turned back to the stove, elbowing Alex aside and taking the offending implement from her.  
"Move over, Paula Dean. I've got this."  
"I resent the implications of that reference."  
"Yeah, well I resent the fact that someone who is the living embodiment of food poisoning is making my dinner." Nicky reached for the spaghetti on the counter to add another portion for herself, then set to tampering with the sauce.

Alex relented, retreating to the safety of the table and her girlfriend.

"I would've made great spaghetti." She mumbled into Piper's neck, burying her face under the guise of a kiss to cover the relief she felt at being usurped.  
"I'm sure you would."

Surfacing, Alex planted another small kiss on Piper's cheek, taking the seat next to her. "Can you cook?"  
"I wouldn't call myself a chef, but I can make a meal."

Nicky snorted with laughter on the other side of the room, and Piper grew uncomfortable. They had both had cooking lessons as part of their education, and Piper's own ability in the kitchen was only poor due to a lack of practice.

"You have lessons or did your Mom teach you?"  
"Uh," Piper hesitated. She was always reluctant to make reference to her privileged upbringing, which was often in stark contrast to Alex's. "Lessons. Mom was more hands-off."

While Alex would speak of her Mom often and with great fondness, Piper was less inclined to do the same. She had a reasonable relationship with her parents, but they were clueless about her relationship with Alex.  
Although she knew it wasn't exactly sustainable, she hoped to keep them in the dark for as long as possible.

"You remember your first meal here?" Nicky asked from the stove.  
"Yeah, we sat on the floor surrounded by boxes you refused to unpack, and ate stale bagels that you found when you arrived. You still won't told me where you found those." Alex arched an eyebrow at the back of the chef's head.  
"Number one, fuck you. We had a great night, and what's life without a little mystery?" Nicky fired back, smirking. "And number two, I wasn't asking  _you_."  
"Oh!" Piper seemed politely surprised to be involved. "Didn't we have spaghetti and meatballs?"  
"I don't want you thinking that's all we eat." Nicky started to plate up. "But that is essentially what we're having for dinner tonight."  
"You worried about your reputation, Gordon Ramsay?" Alex quipped.  
"Don't be an idiot sandwich. Just do me a favour." Food was passed around, and Nicky took her place at the table. "If Morello happens to ask either of you tomorrow what I whipped up for dinner, say it was something incredible."  
Mouth full of food, Alex tilted her head. "Why would we do that?"  
"Because when she asked what my plans were for tonight, I used the phrase  _haute cuisine_."  
Alex laughed through the meatball she'd just bitten into, mumbling around the mouthful. "Do you even know what that means?"  
Piper opened her mouth to define the phrase, but Nicky powered on regardless, a rudderless speedboat on a sunny day.  
"So I figure, 'cuisine' is obviously food, right? And 'hot' sometimes means good. But this isn't just 'hot', it's like, ' _haute'_ , which is even better. Right Chapman?"

Piper didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Despite their similar upbringings, there were clear parts of their classes that Nicky had refused to adopt.

There was a moment of silence, as Piper opened and closed her mouth like a particularly slow goldfish, before laughter broke out between her friends.

"Oh my god, did you see her face?" Nicky guffawed, stabbing her fork into her pasta. "She genuinely thought I didn't know."  
Alex, still laughing, placed her hand affectionately on top of Piper's. "We were just fucking with you, kid."

Piper flushed pink.

"I know I'm not exactly classy, but you can't be the daughter of Marka Nichols and not know fine dining." Nicky muttered fondly through another mouthful. "This'll be fun; I'm glad you moved in."  
Alex squeezed Piper's hand, warmth in her gaze as she grinned at her. "Yeah, me too."

Piper exhaled in relief. If this was the worst hazing she could expect from these two wonderful women, then she had little to worry about.  
She'd have to stay on her toes, but she knew it all came from a place of love.

Taking a forkful of spaghetti, Piper mused aloud. "I will tell Lorna that you made something incredible for dinner. Maybe, Canard à l'Orange?"  
Nicky nodded approvingly at the blonde. "Sounds like a fair deal. I mean, I did make you this delicious Italian dish."  
"... And I'll suggest that she asks you to make it for her too. Since you're so up on  _haute cuisine_."  
Alex smothered a laugh, and Nicky paled. "Aw, shit."

* * *

On the other side of the city, in a partly empty apartment, a phone rang.

Bleary eyed, the rental's sole remaining occupant slid out of bed begrudgingly, padding across the pinewood floor in socks and little else.

"I'll get it!" She yelled, seemingly to someone who was no longer there.

The phone continued to ring as she reached it.

"Jesus Christ, I said  _I'll_   _get it_!"

Still, nobody came to answer the phone on her behalf.

Scooping up the handset, she sweetened her exasperation with the honey of politeness.

"Hello?"  
"Polly, is that you?"  
Polly paused. She recognised that voice. "Mrs Chapman?"  
"I'm sorry to be calling so late, but we just got back from the Seychelles and I've been trying to contact Piper all week! Blasted girl won't answer my messages, but you know how she is, always neck-deep in work."

Polly wanted to drop a scathing remark about something else Piper was currently, constantly,  _grossly_ deep into, but she held her tongue; this was absolutely the wrong Chapman family member to share it with. Instead, she back-channeled amiably, dropping random affirmations in alongside Mrs Chapman's ramblings.

"So, is she there?"  
 _Oh, shit._ Piper had clearly forgotten to tell her parents she was moving house.  
"Uhh…" Polly tried to smother her panic. She hated lying. "No. She's in bed."  
"Already? But it's only eight. Is she ill?"  
"Yes?" Her rising intonation was a dead giveaway, but by that point it was too late.  
"You don't seem sure. Polly, is everything alright?"  
"I'm so sorry Mrs Chapman, I've got to go. There's someone at the door!"  
"A visitor, this late?"  
"Yes, it's… My boyfriend."  
"Polly, you didn't tell me you were seeing anyone!"

_Piper would have a lot to answer for in the morning._

Polly swallowed hard and tried to curb the conversation. "It's been lovely to chat to you Mrs Chapman, but I really do have to go now."  
"Well, please tell Piper I called."  
"I will."  
"And you must get her to tell me all about your new man!"  
"Uh huh. Good night Mrs Chapman."

Polly didn't wait for a reply, slamming the handset back into its cradle unceremoniously.  
She allowed herself a few slow, deep breaths before traipsing begrudgingly back to her bedroom, alone.

It made her sad that the biggest lie of all had been about her love life.

Under the covers once again, Polly flicked open the messaging app on her mobile.

_20:09  
_ _Sorry I couldn't come to help you move in. I hope it went well. BTW your Mom called. She doesn't know you've moved out. I didn't tell her anything, but you need to call her!_

Polly pulled the covers up under her chin. It was cold, and she resented not having anyone to complain to.  
Unlocking her phone again, she sent a final message before considering sleep.

_20:11  
_ _Also, I told her I have a boyfriend, so I sort of need a favour…_


	2. Last Splash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some light fluff before it all starts to go downhill.   
> This chapter is honestly a bit of a non-entity, but a few people requested more domestic!Vauseman so here it is.

Alex awoke briefly to the sounds of Piper padding across the room, the dim illumination of a phone screen smothered hastily as Alex stirred, and the creak of their bedroom door closing behind her.  
Piper would be back, Alex knew, but sleep was already here, and she was a far more attentive lover.

* * *

"Polly, I  _am_  so sorry to put you on the spot like that."  
Polly replied through a mouthful of toothpaste, evidently getting ready to go somewhere. "No, I mean, it's fine, it just - " Piper flinched as she listened to her best friend spit into the sink. "It just sucked, you know?"  
"And I'm so sorry about that - "  
"But at least I'm consistent, because I've now been lying to your Mom for you for over a decade, which is medal-worthy, really." The grin in Polly's voice was clear.  
"How can I make it up to you?"  
"Well, you already gave me the apartment."

They both laughed, and there was a moment of stillness as Piper wished they could be having this conversation facing one another, sitting on the sofa instead of resenting the city's-worth of distance between them.  
She didn't regret her decision to move in with Alex at all, but she did find herself missing Polly's presence more than she'd expected.

"That said," At the other end of the line, Polly cleared her throat. "There is  _something_  you could do for me."  
"Name it."  
"If your parents are coming to town, they're going to want to see me. It's a hazardous consequence of me being the greatest person in your life."  
"Modest as always." Piper interjected.  
"They'll want us all to go to dinner together - like we always do - and my biggest lie from last night was telling your Mom I had a boyfriend."  
"Huh." Piper paused, preempting the imminent request. "You want my help finding one?"

She began to rack her brains for any eligible men at work, but Figueroa prided herself on hiring as many women as possible.  
Nobody sprung to mind immediately, and she highly doubted that any of the single men Alex or Nicky knew would be Polly's type.

Polly cleared her throat, and for a second Piper wondered if she actually sounded a little nervous. "I actually already have someone in mind. I just need his number."  
The blonde was bewildered. "I'm not sure how I feel about using my feminine wiles to get you a phone number from a stranger..."  
"No, dummy. You already have his number. And," Polly hesitated, apparently a little reluctant to continue. "He's not  _exactly_  a stranger, per se."  
"I… What?"  
"You still have Larry's number, right?"  
"Larry who?"  
"Jesus Piper, the one you dated like, two years ago?"

Piper had only dated one Larry, an egotistical journalist she'd seen for six months shortly after moving to the city.

"What, Larry  _Bloom_?"  
"If that's the smart, Jewish drink of milk who looks like the guy from American Pie then yes, Larry Bloom."

_Oh, Jesus. Gross._

She hadn't thought about him for such a long time: it seemed like an alien concept that he could be the same person Polly was talking about.  
Piper stifled a snort of laughter mingled with disbelief. "You want Larry Bloom's phone number."  
"Yes. Please don't make me ask again."  
"Do you like him, or is this some weird 'Le Dîner de Cons' situation?"  
"I don't know what that is, but I  _do_  know that I always thought he was kind of cute, and I liked his self-deprecating nerdiness. So, is that a yes or a no on the number?"  
Piper relented. "I'll send it."  
"Yes!" There was the jingling of keys in the background and the sound of a door opening. "I've got to go to a department store meeting about our soap. Don't forget to call your Mom!"  
"Our PoPi soap? Shouldn't I come?"  
"No, don't worry. It'll be boring as hell. I'll update you after. Bye!"

The line went dead, and Piper was left with an oddly deflated feeling.  
She had left Polly in charge of the business as she returned to teaching - there hadn't been enough for both of them to do when their soap company had been nothing more than a start-up run from an apartment - but it seemed like things might really take off now.  
She wished she was a little more in the loop, but she had voluntarily opted out of the process before the summer had set in.

Winter was fast approaching now, and she wondered what lay ahead.  
An awkward phone call with her Mom, evidently.

Sighing, Piper pulled up the contact list on her mobile and thumbed through until she found the person she was looking for: Carol Chapman.  
Was she the only one who stored her own Mother by name rather than by "Mom"?  
(Neither of her new housemates were in a position to give her an opinion on that, she realised.)

Taking a deep breath, she hit the  _call_  icon.

She still hadn't figured out how truthful she was planning to be when someone answered.

* * *

Alex strained to hear what was being said through the door, tugging her jeans on and doing her best not to stumble about as she listened in.

" _No Mom, Polly and I didn't fall out. I just moved in with some other friends…"_

Alex wasn't sure how she felt about being referred to as a friend.  
She was also perplexed by Piper's evident deception of her parents.  
But she respected Piper's decisions, and knew she'd be making these choices with good reason. She just wished she knew what that reason was.

" _You remember Marka Nichols? Her daughter… Yes, Nicole. I work with her at the school now. She has a big house and a spare room or two, so…"_

Alex twisted the door handle gently, pulling it open just enough that she could see Piper on the other side, pacing around in the corridor between rooms.  
She watched as Piper scuffed her bare foot against the upturned corner of a rug, her back to Alex as she unfurled the edge with her toes in a preoccupied manner, phone still clutched to her ear.

" _Well, Polly has a boyfriend now, so she needed her own space. And it's not like we can afford to pay for an office for PoPi yet..."_

Alex didn't feel good about eavesdropping.  
The only reason she was still loitering in her -  _their -_ bedroom was because she didn't want to interrupt Piper, didn't want her to feel compelled to end the call simply because Alex was awake now.  
She pulled the door open fully and took a step out into the shared space, floorboard creaking beneath her foot.  
Piper spun to face her, a small, affectionate smile curving the corners of her lips.

As Alex had predicted, she began to close the conversation.  
"I'm sorry Mom, I've got to go. Nicky's making breakfast."  
Alex tried to signal  _no_ , Piper could continue, that she'd head downstairs and start to cook them some food, but Piper shook her head. She seemed grateful for the excuse to end it.  
"Nicky  _is_  Nicole, Mom. No, I don't know 'what happened to her' after college. I'll ask, okay?"  
Alex could fill in the blanks to that particular mystery, but there was every chance Piper was bluffing anyway.

"Bye Mom. No,  _bye_  Mom. Okay, goodbye."  
Piper said the last few words loudly, speaking at the phone as she held it in front of her face, looking into it like her Mom might be able to see her leaving.

Sighing, she tucked her phone into her pocket. "Sorry about that. Did I wake you?"  
Alex shrugged. "I needed to be woke. Awoken? Awake." She grinned and held out her hand. "Breakfast?"  
Piper took the proffered palm. "Let's go. I need to finish organising my books anyway."  
"Nerd."

* * *

After a few steps downstairs, Alex looked over her shoulder. "You can take some shelves in the library if you want, instead of trying to cram them onto the little shelves in our room. Outside of my music and books, and Nicky's seventies porno stash, the stacks are pretty empty."

Piper's curiosity was piqued by Nicky's apparent interest in vintage erotica, but she brushed it off in favour of Alex's collection instead. "I'd like to look at your music."  
Stopping at the bottom of the staircase, Alex turned to face her, scowling. "I'm not sure you would."  
Cocking her head to one side, Piper's leaned in, lips brushing against Alex's. "Why not?"  
Alex leaned into the touch. "It's mostly angry women singing about the patriarchy."  
"But I  _love_  angry women singing about the patriarchy."  
Alex smirked. "I think it might be a little raucous for your acoustic sensibilities."  
"I can do raucous!" Piper was pouting, her mouth more than grazing Alex's now, inviting kisses that remained elusive as Alex enjoyed her protestations.  
Wrapping her arms around her girlfriend, she held the younger women close. "Sure you can,  _honey_."

"How about," Piper punctuated her enquiry with kisses. "We make some breakfast, and you can tell me all about the music you like?"  
A voice from the kitchen beside them drifted into the hallway. "Jeez, it's been almost six months. Have you guys not covered music already?"  
Alex hung her head and laughed, taking Piper's hand again as they headed toward the source of the voice.

Nicky stood in the open back door, a cup of steaming coffee in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. "I thought music came in the first few weeks, along with like, favourite colour and star sign and sex positions and all that shit."  
"What's Morello's favourite colour?"  
"Purple. Or pink. Depends on the day."  
"Star sign?'  
"Cancer. And we're  _not even dating_!"  
Alex shrugged. "I guess we were busy learning other things about each other. What Morello's favourite sex position?"  
Nicky stuck a finger up at Alex, who laughed. "Rude. Your classy girlfriend is here. I thought you said we had to keep it clean?"

Piper repeated her slightly discomforted impression of a goldfish from the night before, opening and closing her mouth until Alex kissed her cheek.  
Nicky eyed them, nauseated, across the room. "Ugh, fuck. Several classic copies of Penthouse and I are heading upstairs."

Nicky stopped at Piper's shoulder as she passed, leaving her now-empty coffee cup on the table before leaning in to Piper. "Seriously though, help yourself to the library. But my Playboy issues are organised by how many times I've masturbated to them, so don't mess up the order, yeah?"  
"Uh…"  
"Come on, I'll show you."

Nicky took Piper's arm and lead her from the room.  
Alex smothered a laugh, scooping up Nicky's abandoned mug and sliding it into the dishwasher.  
Piper could handle herself.

In two weeks, they'd be off for winter break, and Alex couldn't wait.  
They'd spent Thanksgiving with Red, their own obscure version of a family gathered around a huge, ancient table in Red's little house while she and Gloria had fussed over the vegetables.  
Nicky had tried to hold the event at theirs, but Red had insisted that she would only cook a Thanksgiving meal in her own oven.  
They had ended up crowded together in Red's small kitchen, tables brought from all over to accommodate the mass of women huddled around the food.  
It had been perfect.

But now Christmas was creeping around the corner, and Alex was tentatively excited to ask Piper what  _their_  plans were.  
Alex understood the ritual of family gatherings, but had no relatives of her own now. Her father was an enigma best left alone - he had already led her down a path that had been unpleasant to extricate herself from - and the thought of spending the day with Piper brought up the odd sort of domestic comfort she'd craved as a kid.

So far Alex had no real plans of her own, and she hoped that maybe she and Piper could spend the festive period together. She was reluctant to let her hopes get too high, instead choosing to shelve the thought for another time.

Breaking two eggs into a bowl and mixing with flour and milk, Alex allowed herself to reminisce for a minute or two.  
The pan on the stove warmed as she watched, pouring the mixture in and rolling it around into a circle.  
The smell of the pancakes reminded her of her childhood, sitting in diner after diner, watching her Mom bustle around with pots of coffee, pouring for patrons who rarely tipped and barely said thanks.  
Cracked Formica tabletops reformed beneath the fingertips she rested on the kitchen counter, napkin dispensers and sugar pourers sussurating around her.

A record crackled into life from across the hall, and Alex jerked back to the present with a start.  
Nicky was rummaging through her music collection again.

Flipping the almost-burning pancake, Alex absently whisked the mixture in the bowl again and started brewing some coffee.

"Alex?"  
The voice from the doorway caught her attention. "Yeah kid?"  
"I like your music."  
"You've been gone for five minutes, you can't have listened to it all." Alex cast a wry smile in Piper's direction.  
"I liked the one Nicky played, by The Brooders?"  
" _Breeders._ " Alex corrected quietly, smiling.  
"Is your collection in any order? It isn't alphabetised or anything."  
"It's in order of favourite. The ones I listen to the most are at the front, so they're easiest to find every time."  
"Oh."  
"I told you," Nicky's voice drifted across the hall into the kitchen. "She's not as sorted as she seems!"  
"Breakfast is almost ready." Alex murmured from the stove where she stood.

Piper rounded the table and arrived next to her, stepping so close that she almost shared the floor tile Alex was standing on.  
She set to finishing the coffee and gathering cutlery.  
It made Alex smile to see Piper navigate the kitchen as she would her own. Although, Alex supposed in hindsight, this  _was_  Piper's kitchen now.

They sat side by side, eating from a single plate between them.  
It didn't take long to finish the pancakes, even after they'd fought over the last piece.  
They sat in a companionable silence, Alex's record player still playing the strains of The Breeders''Last Splash' across the corridor from them.  
Piper trailed her index finger down Alex's arm, caught up in a moment of remembering each inch of Alex that she'd memorised in those first few months.

Alex stilled her actions, covering Piper's hand with her own. "Are you okay? You seem preoccupied."  
"I spoke to my Mom on the phone this morning." Piper didn't make eye contact with Alex, instead tracing the tribal pattern that Alex had tattooed on her forearm.  
"I heard. Is she okay?"  
"My Mom?" Piper stalled, actions pausing as she sat up straighter. "Oh yeah, no, she's just  _fine_. In fact..."

Alex took a long, slow drink of her coffee as she. Waited for Piper to continue.

"In fact..?"  
"... She's coming to town soon. She and my Dad. Or she's threatening to."  
"Okay?"  
"I thought, maybe, we could cut her off at the pass."  
"Meaning?"  
"If we offer to meet her first, to go home, then she doesn't need to come to us."  
"You don't seem happy about any of this."  
"No, it's just..."

Piper tailed off again, stuck for an explanation.  
She had never told her parents that she liked women, or at least, that she liked the few women she'd found herself attracted to.  
Revealing to them that she not only  _liked_  women, but was dating one  _and_  had moved in with her new partner was a stretch she wasn't willing to make right now - the pool was still, why cause ripples?

But she'd have to.  
Her options were limited: keep her relationship a secret as though Alex was something to be ashamed of, or tell all and risk her friendship with her parents.

"I don't know how they'll be about..." Piper gestured vaguely at the air between herself and Alex. "This. Us."  
It was as though the sun had dawned on Alex in the same moment it had set on Piper. "Oh.  _Oh_."  
The younger woman nodded.

"Are they," Alex lowered her voice, mock conspiratorially. "Republicans?"  
"Al, I'm serious."  
"Me too. Republicans  _hate_  me."  
"Please, Alex. I'm worried about this."  
Alex took Piper's hand in hers. "Whatever it is, we can figure it out, okay? I'm not going anywhere."

The record crackled to a halt.

Piper took a deep breath and mustered the best smile she could manage.   
She sincerely hoped that Alex was right.


	3. Something To Tell You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I may have been one of those people who watched the next season in its entirety over the weekend.  
> I didn't hate it, and I laughed more than I'd expected to. High fives and fist bumps to the writers, 'cause Christ knows without them we wouldn't be here. Let me know what you thought of season six in the reviews, yeah?   
> I'll be replying to reviews before the end of this week.
> 
> Sidenote and shameless plug: my fic 'Only You' (posted 2/7/15!) turns out to have been surprisingly portentous in some ways. If you've finished season six, give it a read. If you haven't, don't. Spoilers!

 

Monday reluctantly rolled around, and Piper found herself being presented with a small potted cactus at lunchtime, Red patting her arm affectionately as she handed it over.

"It's a house-warming gift." Red explained, smiling warmly.  
"Thank you?"  
"To remind you to watch out for the pricks."  
"Oh. Okay." Piper was nonplussed, but accepted the cactus regardless.  
It was in a small terracotta pot, a red ribbon wrapped around the rim.

The older woman seemed pleased with Piper's response, reclining back in the armchair she occupied.  
"You need to be gentle with Alex at this time of the year. Christmas is a difficult holiday when you've lost a loved one. I still think of my dear Dmitri fondly."  
 _Husband perhaps?_  Piper mused. She'd never heard Red mention him before.  
"I'm so sorry, I didn't know he'd passed."  
"He hasn't, I just hate him." Red guffawed. "He and I are better apart, but I think Alex will be needing the opposite. You're spending Christmas together, yes?"  
"We haven't really discussed it. I need to spend some time with my parents - they're already perplexed that I moved out of my friend's apartment."  
"But you've explained?"  
"Not yet..."  
"So they don't know? About you and Alex?"  
"I'm just waiting for the right moment."  
"There is no right moment for parents to hear that their daughter is a homosexual. They know you like women?"

Piper paled.  
She had only been attracted to a handful of women prior to Alex, and with Alex she had definitely been her bravest, best bisexual self.  
There had never been an appropriate time for her to share her predilections with her parents - prior to now, there had been no need, no relationship to conceal or smother with mumblings about some boyfriend or other.  
Piper's silence said it all.

"So you have told them nothing."  
"Not yet. Like I said." She began to bristle under Red's scrutiny. She didn't like being questioned like this.  
"You will need to tell them soon. Christmas is three weeks away."  
"I'll speak to my parents when I'm ready - "  
"This isn't for your parents, Chapman." Red addressed her by her surname, all humour gone from the lines around her eyes. "This is for Alex. Don't let it seem like you're embarrassed or ashamed of her. God knows she had enough of that from people like you when she was growing up."

Piper bristled at the implication: she tried to distance herself from the pretentious, precocious girls she'd been at school with as much as possible.  
But before she could form a polite retort, Red rose to her feet abruptly, clearing away the litter left from her lunch.

"That cactus needs watering once a week."

 _A little like you_ , Piper thought resentfully.

Red cast a disparaging look at her, and Piper feared for a moment that she had mumbled her insult aloud, but the older woman exited the teacher's lounge without a backwards glance.  
Sighing, Piper placed the plant down onto the table in front of her

A sharp sting in her finger let her know she hadn't been as careful as she should've been as she withdrew her hand, hurt.  
Resting the bloodied, punctured pad of her index against her tongue, Piper dug deep for resolve.  
She'd speak to Alex tonight. Right after finding a very high shelf out of the way for her housewarming present to live on.

* * *

Alex was on a roll when Piper paused in her doorway. The brunette's hands were tucked into her pockets, but Piper could tell from the way that her heel tapped against the desk she perched on the edge of that Alex was animated, engaged.

"So why didn't they like Heathcliff? Why was he so consistently isolated and mistreated by the others?"  
"Because nobody knew where he came from?" A student guessed, grasping at straws.  
"Yes and no. Mystery didn't result in rejection - if anything, that created curiosity from those around him. What set him apart from Cathy and Hindley and Edgar and Isabella?"

Piper leaned further into the room and a floorboard creaked beneath her foot.  
All heads in the room turned to face her, and she blushed a little as Alex's lips curved into an irrepressible grin.

"Miss Chapman."  
"Ms Vause."

There was a moment of stillness as the two women regarded one another, but a wave of whispering broke them apart.

"My class seem to be having difficulty answering this question. It leads me to think that perhaps none of them have actually read the book." Alex turned a steely gaze to the room before her, which fell silent. "Because let's be honest, Tom Hardy doesn't exactly explore the narrative in his version of Heathcliff."

There was some guilty mumbling from a few of the students as Alex scooped up her copy of Wuthering Heights, pacing between the aisles restlessly.

"What do you think, Miss Chapman? Want to help my class out?"

Piper stepped fully into the room this time, and took Alex's place leaning against the large desk at the front.  
She had some particularly fond memories of this desk, her fingertips curling into the wood as she tried to cast the thoughts aside.

"Well, in chapter seven, how does Hindley treat Heathcliff?" Piper asked the room. Paper rustled as pages were turned in panic.  
"Like a maid!" Someone near the back shouted.

The class laughed, but Alex paused by the desk of the answering student.  
"Did you hear that, Miss Chapman?" She looked at Piper in mock horror. "Somebody has actually taken the time to read the book to get the right answer."

Alex reached the front of the class again, nudging Piper over with her hip so there was room for both of them to lean on her desk. "You were partly right. He treats him like a servant. And what's the difference between a servant and a master - or mistress - of the house?"  
"Class!"  
"Bingo. So let me ask again - what set Heathcliff apart from Cathy and Hindley and Edgar and Isabella?"  
"His class!" Several students were answering now, and Alex seemed happy.

Piper chose this opportunity to make her exit, her arm grazing against Alex's as she stood to leave.

"Now you're getting it. Grab your phones and start researching the British class structure around the era of the Industrial Revolution. I'll be back in one minute to find out how you're getting on."

Alex followed Piper out into the corridor.

"They seem like a good group." Piper smiled.  
"It's taking them a while to work through stuff. It would help if they'd actually read any of the materials. But," Alex paused, looking back into the room before lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I think they're actually starting to get it."  
"That's because you're a great teacher."

They shared a grin.

"Can we talk tonight?" Piper ventured tentatively.  
"That sounds ominous. Sure."

Alex shifted her weight on the balls of her feet, a creeping unease settling across her shoulders.

"I should get back to class."  
"And I have papers to mark. See you at three?"  
"Yeah." Alex seemed distracted, and Piper wished she hadn't prefaced her impending confession. Alex would be worry about this unknown for the rest of her lesson now. "See you soon."

She turned on the spot, pushing open the door to her classroom, only to see students scampering back to their seats.

"Since you're all so keen to see what's going on in the corridor, I assume you've all finished the task." She stopped on the other side of the slowly closing door, folding her arms. "So here's your extension question - does class still keep people apart today?"

Piper felt a strange heat flushing her face as the question rang in her ears, and she took several deep breaths before she walked away.  
As much as she begrudged the realisation, Red had been right: there was a conversation to be had.

* * *

Alex swirled red wine around the inside of her glass, watching it cling to and coat the surface before glancing skeptically up at her girlfriend.

"So you wanted to talk about  _Christmas_?"  
"Yes. Well, no." Piper hesitated. "But also yes."  
"Jesus, you scared me. I thought it was something serious."

Piper's answering smile was wan, and Alex recognised that this was perhaps more of an issue than she'd considered.  
She reached across the table and laced their fingers together.

"I'm sorry. Talk to me about Christmas."  
Piper visibly swallowed, and addressed the next question to her red wine. "What are we doing for Christmas?"  
Alex was brimming full of easy jokes, but she kept it kind. "That's a touch ambiguous, kid. What do you mean?"  
"I normally spend it with my parents."

Alex finally understood the itch that her girlfriend was struggling to scratch.  
She watched as Piper ran her hand through her hair, mimicking Alex's trademark stress gesture, and wondered how long ago Piper had started to emulate her.

"It's okay, Pipes." Alex smiled softly, acknowledging that the silence had stretched on for a little too long. "I don't mind spending Christmas here. Nicky'll probably be around, and you've got traditions. I get that."

Piper shook her head. There was so much that she wanted to say.  
 _I'm sorry that I'm leaving you alone._

 _I'm sorry that this will be difficult for you.  
_ _I'm sorry that you don't have a family to spend Christmas with_.

Something clicked at the back of her mind, and she knew she was over-complicating this.  
She could see her parents whenever she wanted. Christmas was, in theory, a day just like any other.  
If they had a problem with that, they could tell her. It filled her with dread, but she could speak to them.

"I said I  _normally_  spend Christmas with my parents. This year I think I'd like to spend it with you."  
Alex raised an eyebrow. This has taken an unexpected turn. "Yeah?"  
"Yes. If you don't mind, that is."  
"I don't mind. Definitely not." Alex beamed.  
"I mean, I'll have to see my parents at some point. But that doesn't have to be Christmas day."

The younger woman drained her glass in one go, as the thought of raising this change in routine with her parents bobbed up once more in the murky depths of her mind.

"I could come with you, if you want."  
"I wouldn't want to put you through that." Piper scoffed.  
"I should meet them at some point."  
"You don't  _have_  to." Piper stroked her thumb across Alex's knuckles, as though trying to rub the idea away.  
"Maybe not. But I probably should. Besides, if you wanted to get to them before they can come to us, Christmas isn't far away. There's nothing like a trip to suburbia to remind me why I prefer the working classes."

Alex winked, and Piper allowed herself a small sigh of relief. Now all she had to do was tell her parents.

* * *

Piper had been on the phone for fifty minutes, but had only managed to steer the conversation around to the topic of Christmas in the last ten. She'd been on her way out for a run - wicking shirt, short shorts and all - when she had unceremoniously decided to face her fears, and this was how Alex found her time on the sofa with her music somewhat stunted.  
She set another vinyl playing - some new indie rock girl band fresh out of the San Fernando Valley, who seemed to be playing in every record store she stopped by - as she watched Piper shift her weight from foot to foot, shiny white running shoes creaking against the wooden planks, occasionally breaking pattern to pace the floorboards before returning to her irritable restlessness.

Piper's rising tone pulled Alex out of her own head, and she scrambled in an ungainly manner up from the sofa to lay a hand on Piper's arm.  
"No Mom, I know you're disappointed. Yes, you  _may_  have mentioned it just three or four times. Can we-"

She broke off with an exasperated sigh, turning to look at Alex.

 _Sorry_ , she mouthed.  
Alex shook her head, kissing the cheek of the tense blonde, whose fingers were white-knuckled around the small handset she cradled against her ear.

Concern was building in Alex's chest as she listened in. If this was how Piper's parents were going to react to cancelled Christmas plans, how would they respond to their daughter's new relationship?

"Yes, no, Boxing Day is fine... Yes, I am  _quite_  frustrated."

A creaking floorboard in the doorway caused both women to turn, only to see Nicky creeping in, utterly failing in her bid to move surreptitiously.

"Who's she on the phone to, sex hotline?" The newcomer cracked in a poor imitation of a stage whisper.

Alex smothered a laugh as Piper continued, a little louder than before.

"Look, I  _will_  call you tomorrow. I am not not being rude Mom, I have to go. Yes, tomorrow. Okay... Goodbye." She tossed her phone on to the soft couch behind her, face stricken.  
"You know, a friend of mine once told me that 'goodbye' stemmed from the phrase 'God be with ye', but I'm honestly not sure God is with  _anybody_  here after that conversation." Nicky offered helpfully.  
"I was the friend who told you that." Piper said, with the smallest smile.  
"How's your Mom?"  
"How did you know?"  
"I can always tell when Mrs Chapman has had her hand in something." Nicky's conciliatory smile was swiftly quashed by her follow-up comment. "That's how I recognised your Dad so fast."

Alex made a soft retching noise in response, but Piper took a step forward, hands on Nicky's shoulders.

"I know that you use humour to deflect from emotional content, but I value the sincerity of your attempt to make me feel better."

She pulled Nicky in for a hug, the recipient initially looking alarmed before settling into the gesture.  
They broke apart after a second or two and Piper continued on her journey outside, giving Alex's hand a gentle squeeze as she passed. .

Alex and Nicky were left alone in the library, and the shorter woman bumped her fist against Alex's bicep approvingly.

"I gotta give it to you - even though I didn't understand  _a single word_  of what your girl just said, she's sweet."  
"She'll do." Alex grinned. "You've known her parents for longer than I've even known her - what are they like?"  
Nicky shrugged. "They're your straight white rich people. Privileged, uppity, right-wing. Mrs Chapman is overbearing and Mr Chapman is underwhelming. They like tradition and things that come in pastel colours."  
"I once had a strap-on that was marketed as being 'duck-egg blue'. Does that count?" The brunette joked, tongue firmly fixed in cheek.  
"Totally depends what you used it for." Nicky shrugged, deadly serious. "Maybe if you gave me some more details, I could help. I give great Suburbia."

* * *

Piper had only been jogging for five minutes when her phone rang.  
She was out somewhere in the grounds surrounding the house, and from their position on the hill atop the long curving drive from the main road, she had a pretty great view.  
That is, until she saw who was calling.

"Mom? Is this a pocket call? We literally just spoke."  
"Piper, darling, your Father and I had a talk."  
"That sounds ominous."  
"We've discussed your proposal for Christmas, and we think that it sounds fine."  
Piper had to stop running, adjusting her earbuds to ensure she heard the conversation correctly. "You do?"  
"Yes! We'll see you on Boxing Day, and we'll have Cal for company on the twenty-fifth itself."

Piper wasn't at all certain how comfortable her brother would feel being home alone with their parents on Christmas Day, but she could live with the guilt if she got to spend the day with Alex.

"That's so great. Thank you."  
"So we'll pop down this weekend to see you in the meantime."  
 _Oh_. "You'll… What?"  
"We'll come down on Friday and stay until Sunday evening. It'll be just like when we used to visit you and Polly at university. Remember how we'd stay in the hotel and you would meet us for breakfast and - "  
"But I have plans." This was a lie, but Piper couldn't bring herself to turn her parents down.  
"When?"  
"The Sunday. And - "  
It was her Mother's turn to interject this time. "Then we'll only stay until the Saturday."

Piper paused.  
If this was the trade she had to make to ensure that she and Alex were able to spend Christmas Day together, she might just have to bite the bullet.

"Great." She exhaled eventually. "Let me find you a hotel. A nice one. One that's,"-  _far away_  - "centrally situated. And has parking for the Mercedes."  
"Wonderful. So we'll see you and Polly for dinner on Friday?"  
Piper made a mental note to call her business partner about her eerily accurate prediction. "Definitely."  
"Oh, and Piper? Pick a nice restaurant for the meal. None of this vegan nonsense. We need real food darling, we're not rabbits."  
"Sure, yes. Just let me know when you're planning to arrive."  
"I am so looking forward to seeing you. It's been months."

Piper acknowledged guiltily that her Mother was right. It had been far longer than usual since they had last socialised.

She brought the conversation to a close and stood atop the hill, looking out at the rapidly setting Monday sun.

It had been far too cold for the shorts she'd picked out, but she'd seen Alex eye her up in them before, and it was worth the chill for the looks she got in return.  
In simple terms, they were far from her biggest regret of the day.

Her run had gone awry, and she turned back towards the house, mentally chiding herself for letting her Mother derail yet another perfectly good period of time.  
As long as she didn't derail her relationship with Alex at the same time, small things could be forgiven.


	4. Hit Reset

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accidentally ended up with a 4k word count on this chapter because I realised that we hadn't had a proper sex scene yet. I am both sorry, and simultaneously not sorry.
> 
> Also, I saw St Vincent live the other night, and she was awesome. If you haven't heard the new album yet, give it a go.
> 
> Replies to reviews at the end.

 

After Piper returned from her run, they settled into the evening routine they'd become accustomed to; dinner, downtime, showers, then bed.  
Sometimes they would read in the low glow of the bedside lamps, but they had work again tomorrow and Piper was tired.  
The knowledge of the conversation with her parents - which she still hadn't shared - hung heavy in her heart, and she couldn't decide how best to share it.

" _We've discussed your proposal for Christmas, and we think that it sounds fine."  
_ " _You do?" Piper couldn't believe her luck.  
_ " _Yes! We'll see you on Boxing Day, and we'll have Cal for company on the twenty-fifth itself."  
_ " _That's so great. Thank you."  
_ " _So we'll pop down this weekend to see you in the meantime." Her mother continued.  
_ " _You'll… What?"  
_ " _We'll come down on Friday and stay until Sunday evening. It'll be just like when we used to visit you and Polly at university."_

Alex had been following the path of her clavicle with her mouth for several seconds now, and Piper knew she'd have to share the news before they moved onto anything else.  
She was already too much in her own head about it.

Piper took a deep breath in. "I have good news and bad news."  
Her fingers trailed across Alex's back in the dark, and Alex paused her kisses.  
"You have terrible timing," Alex muttered begrudgingly, mouth inches from Piper's neck. "But go ahead."  
Piper took a deep breath in before continuing. "My parents are coming to stay this weekend."  
Alex barely concealed a low groan in reply. "Just so you know, this is not the way to get laid. Unexpected parental visits is not one of my kinks."  
"You sound like Nicky."  
"And you sound like a white Anglo Saxon Protestant who's altogether too amenable to Mommy and Daddy." Alex bit back, sharper than she'd intended.

There was a pause, and in the dim light of their bedroom, Alex watched a number of emotions flit across Piper's features.  
She was still propped up on her arms over Piper, the muscles in her biceps aching.  
She could move away, but then it would seem like she was angry.  
That said, her most recent statement had probably conveyed that message anyway.

"I…"  
"I'm sorry. That was," She paused, reluctant to admit she was at fault, but guilty nonetheless. "I was mean. I didn't -"  
"No, you're right." Piper sighed.  
"I was an asshole."  
"You can still be right." Her eyes shone in the dark, and Alex pressed a soft kiss to her lips.  
"I said that because I'm uncomfortable. I'm nervous. I don't like people like your parents."  
"You don't need to."  
"But they're your parents."

Piper ran soft palms down Alex's sides. They were naked together, which was usually her favourite place to be. Tonight wasn't as enjoyable.

"What do you want to do?" She asked gently.  
"What do you mean?" Alex rolled onto her side, leg still draped across Piper's body.  
"They don't know about  _us_  yet." Alex released a huff of breath, saying nothing. Piper hesitated. "If you wanted to cut and run for the weekend, I'd understand. I can tell them when you're not here."  
"And leave you to deal with two suburban Republicans by yourself? I'm a dick, but I'm not heartless."  
Piper laughed, but it was without mirth. "I can handle my parents. I know this is sudden. I thought we'd have more time before we had to deal with this. It would be great to have your company, but I wouldn't blame you."

Alex hesitated. She should stay. She  _knew_  she should stay.  
Piper's last statement had made it clear that even Piper would quite like her to stay.  
She planted another soft kiss on Piper's cheek, ponderously, deliberately, problem solving.  
On the other side of the bed, Piper's phone buzzed, screen illuminating the dark room in the absence of their usual lamplight.

"Hold that thought." The blonde murmured, reaching across to the nightstand where her mobile lay charging.  
It was a text from Polly.

_22:26  
_ _Any news from your parents?_

Piper resisted the urge to laugh. Polly somehow  _always_  knew when her parents had been in touch.  
She typed out a quick explanation and sent it back, all too aware of Alex's stillness in the darkness behind her.

Alex and Polly could at least spend time in the same room now - a significant improvement on their previous time together - but she didn't like the thought of leaving Alex unattended in favour of Polly, when things were already a little fractious between them.

Polly's response was mercifully swift, but not altogether welcome.

_22:31  
_ _Jesus. Have you messaged Larry yet?_

Oh. She'd forgotten about that part of their agreement.

Returning her phone to its resting place, Piper twisted around in bed, landing nose-to-nose with her girlfriend.  
"I think, in hindsight, maybe you  _shouldn't_  be around next weekend."

Piper's tone of voice made Alex smirk. This was always her approach to recanting; the truncated vowels, small gestures, exaggerated intonation. Something had clearly made her think twice about Alex attending.

"Why?"  
Piper tried to soften the incoming blow by brushing a stray strand of hair from Alex's face, but the brunette wasn't in the least bit fooled. "Promise not to be mad?"  
"What is this, kindergarten?"  
Piper emitted a slack line of a feeble laugh, all knotted with insecurity and tangled in nerves. "Did I ever tell you about Larry?"

* * *

"She's invited her ex? To meet your parents? Next weekend? Here?"  
"Yeah Nicky, just keep repeating it." Alex looked up from where she lay on the sofa, eyes closed. "That's bound to make it better."  
"Sorry, stretch. Straight chicks are weird, right?"

Piper was out with Polly, discussing their soap business - which, while Alex was all for a start-up company, still struck her as odd - over dinner and drinks.  
They had been at work all day and neither had really had time to discuss the finite details of Piper's arrangement for next weekend,  _or_  the fact that for some reason her ex-boyfriend Barry - or Gary? - had to be involved, so she appreciated this opportunity to mull it over now.

"Hey," Alex swivelled her legs off the edge of the sofa and sat up, eyeing Nicky across the room. "You wanna get high?"  
"Eh, I can't." Nicky shrugged a little reluctantly. "Morello's coming over, and I think I'd rather be  _not stoned_  for this."  
"That's fair. How are things?"  
"Hard to say. When it's just us, things are," Nicky paused to mime a variety of sexual activities, which frankly Alex had not needed to see. "But when other people are around, it's like she wants nothing to do with me."  
"Shit, I'm sorry. But this proves you were right."  
Nicky lit up: Alex never conceded victory. "About what?"  
Alex shrugged, returning to her previously prone position on the sofa. "Straight chicks  _are_  weird."

* * *

The days passed by far more swiftly than either of the women had anticipated, and before they knew where they were, Thursday night had arrived, unprompted and unwelcome.

Their evenings during the week had been largely occupied by swathes of marking, and Alex often had to sequester herself away from Nicky and Piper to prevent distractions. This enforced separation hadn't aided the discomfort still present between she and her girlfriend; Alex continued to be prickled by the concept of Piper spending Friday's dinner with her ex, and Piper was preemptively tense about her parents arriving.  
The whole thing felt like a shitshow before they'd even begun.

It was easily 11pm before Piper eventually folded away her books and papers, sighing as she said goodnight to Nicky, who had been studying the pages of a copy of 'Brazzers' from 1972 in an alarming amount of detail.  
Climbing the stairs, she found Alex asleep at the small table in their room, desk lamp crowding over her and hair mussed by the essays she was napping on.

"Baby?" Piper ventured, shifting the work she carried uneasily.  
The brunette remained motionless, the only sign of life being the soft rise and fall of her shoulders with each breath she took.  
"Al. Alex."  
Piper dumped her documents on the bed and laid a soft hand on her girlfriend's shoulder.  
"Alex, come on."  
Alex stirred, words slurred and groggy as she mumbled Piper's name.  
"It's time for bed, you've been asleep at your desk."  
"Did I drool?"  
Piper was nonplussed. "What?"  
"Did I drool. On the work."

Alex managed to gain enough composure to inspect the sheets in front of her, and Piper leant in to do the same. She could smell Alex's shampoo, the fabric conditioner coming from Alex's shirt, and was reminded in an instant how much she loved the woman in front of her.

"I think you're in the clear." She murmured reassuringly over Alex's shoulder, watching as the brunette pushed her glasses up to rub her eyes.  
"'M so tired."  
"I know. Want to go straight to bed?"  
Alex rose to her feet unsteadily, still sleepy. "No. I need to shower first."  
"Want a hand?"

Alex nodded slowly, shedding her clothes one by one as she trailed out of their bedroom door in the direction of the large shared bathroom.  
Piper grabbed Alex's towel from the floor - where she'd discarded it that morning, late to leave the house - and headed after her.

She found her girlfriend standing nude in front of the shower cubicle, steam pooling around her ankles as she watched the hot water fall into the tray, swirling around the plug hole.  
Alex stepped forward gingerly, the spray hitting her pale skin like the worst torrential rain, the warmth beckoning sleep and safety.  
She drew the glass door closed behind her, before seemingly reconsidering and reopening it, stretching a dripping hand out to Piper.   
"C'mere."

Piper dumped the towel and stripped, eyes affixed on the small puddle forming on the floor below Alex's proffered palm.

She reached the shower and paused. "Are you sure?"

They'd barely kissed all week, spooning in bed out of habit rather than conscious decision, and Piper didn't want to overstep anything.  
There was no frostiness between them, but their own insecurities seemed to have formed a rift rather than a bridge.

"Please just get in the shower." Alex sounded impatient rather than frustrated.

Piper bowed her head, smile hidden by the curtain of her hair, and took the proffered hand.

"I'm sorry if I've been distant." The older woman mumbled as she pulled Piper in, placing her long arms over each of Piper's shoulders, fingers trailing across her shoulder blades.  
"Me too."  
"And…" Alex looked up at her then. "It bothers me, Larry coming to dinner with your parents. It bothers me that they've met him as your boyfriend, and now as your ex-boyfriend, and they haven't met me at all."  
"I'm sorry, I know it can't feel great, me dredging up the past. I just feel like I owe Polly for covering for me, and…" Piper's tone shifted to consolatory. "If it helps, he hasn't actually agreed to it yet. I left him a voicemail and he hasn't called back. And you can still come to dinner. If you want to, that is."  
Alex splashed her toes a little in the water pooling around their feet, and shook her head. "You said it yourself - I'm not sure how good an idea it is for me to be there when you break the news."  
Piper shifted her weight uncomfortably. "I didn't say that."  
"Maybe not in so many words, but it's true."

They stood in silence for a moment, letting the water wash over them.

"I don't want to hide you. I'm not ashamed of anything."  
"I'm not hiding. This is…" Alex hesitated as she sought for the right words. "This is a tactical decision. You know your audience best. Bringing me along would be like you turning up dressed in a rainbow flag with  _fuck you_  written on the back." She smoothed some hair way from Piper's face and placed a small kiss where it had been. "And all due respect, but I don't really want to get caught up in some coming-out crisis. I've been that girl too many times."  
Piper's curiosity piqued, as it was wont to do. "What do you mean?"  
Alex laughed, their old easy familiarity returning in a way that warmed Piper's heart. "Depends how long you want to stay in the shower."  
Piper placed a warm hand on the back of Alex's neck and tugged her closer for a kiss. "As long as it takes."

Sliding her other arm around Alex's waist, she took a bold step forward, pressing Alex back again the cold tiles.  
Alex gasped, but held still, challenge glinting in her gaze.  
She could remember their first time in this shower, so very similar and yet somehow so different, and how nervous they'd both been about getting everything right.  
They had gotten so much wrong since, but with Piper she felt safe to make mistakes.

Placing her hands on Piper's hips, Alex pulled her girlfriend closer, bridging the gap between them. "I thought we were done bringing up exes."  
"This is a story I'm happy to make an exception for." Piper's voice had dropped an octave, eyes bright and determined.  
"Deal."

All too aware of the slippy surface beneath them, Alex turned swiftly, reversing their positions, pressing Piper's chest flush against the wall and moving to stand behind her.  
Piper made a noise of surprise, followed swiftly by a moan, as Alex took each of Piper's wrists in her hands and pressed them against the cold ceramic either side of her head.

Piper leaned into Alex's touch longingly, a brief flash of nostalgia washing over her as she fondly remembered the silk ties attached to their bedposts, with which she had become well acquainted in their early days of dating.

"I'll tell you the story…" Piper could hear Alex smirking, the brunette's thumbs applying the gentlest of pressure into the tip of her radius bones, holding her in place. "... If you can stay still."  
"Deal." Piper echoed Alex's earlier declarative all-too confidently, her breath catching as Alex reached between her legs, brushing against her heat.  
"When I was nineteen," Alex began, fingers ghosting across Piper's clit. "I dated a college girl for a month."  
Piper moaned and bucked back into Alex. " _Fuck._ "  
"Ssh." Alex placed her free hand squarely over Piper's mouth and increased her pace. "Don't interrupt."

Piper wanted to laugh at the mischievousness in Alex's tone, but the speed of Alex's fingers cancelled out much of her conscious thought.  
She zoned in on Alex's voice, the way she could hear her smile curling at the corners, and considered nineteen-year-old Alex instead.

"This college girl was majoring in anthropology. I guess that should've been my first clue that things weren't quite right." Alex joked. She began to slide her index and middle finger firmly either side of Piper's clit, stroking it until she could feel Piper's muffled curses hit the palm of her other hand. "She invited me back to her place one night. It was a big red brick - looked like a sorority house but it was miles from campus. That was my second clue."

Piper closed her eyes and tilted her head back, resting it on Alex's shoulder.  
She could feel a tingling beginning in her toes, and pressed her wrists hard against the tiles in a desperate effort to stay still as Alex had instructed.

"It was dead when we arrived, completely empty. Everything inside was like a white middle class heaven." Alex continued, as though they were anywhere other than here. She slid one digit, and then two, inside of Piper, who was breathing hard against Alex's hand as she was fucked slowly and steadily, hips rolling back a little further each time to chase the pleasure.

She loved the feeling of Alex inside her her, and this was no exception. Each curl of Alex's fingers or the twist of her wrist made her tremble, and she found that she had to tamp down the urge to beg.

"We started making out on this fucking ugly green leather chaise longue as the sun set. About a half hour passed before she asked me to go down on her. She tasted a little like you," Alex paused, moving her fingers from between Piper's legs and slipping them into Piper's waiting mouth. "But nowhere near as good."

Piper set free another long, exhaled  _fuck_  around Alex's digits, sucking the length of each in a way that made Alex gasp in her ear.  
She could taste herself - salt, sweet, slick - and was so distracted that she almost missed Alex's movements behind her, as Alex slid the hand now unoccupied by Piper's mouth between her thighs once more.

There was no hesitation this time; Alex nudged Piper's feet further apart and pressed the tips of three fingers into Piper's heated entrance, filling her slowly until Piper's knees were weak, legs trembling, the slow stretch burning but so,  _so_  good..

"A while passed and I heard a car on the drive. She got louder -  _clue number three_ \- and I heard someone opening the front door. I kept going - she said she was coming, so I wasn't going to stop - and then someone walked into the room."

Piper's breath hitched as Alex slid into her up to the knuckle, her other hand curling around Piper's abdomen to stroke her clit.  
Alex knew she couldn't come from penetration alone, and the fingers she danced across Piper's clit proved just how well she had learned the younger woman's intricacies.

"Harder Alex, please,  _fuck_ …"

The palms Piper had kept so precariously placed against the tiles began to curl into fists, and she felt Alex's breath hot against her neck, exertion forcing the air from both of them.  
She could hear the sound of Alex fucking her over the rush of the shower, the steam from the water forming beads of sweat that ran down her back and onto Alex's chest, their bodies flush against one another.

"C'mon Pipes, come for me."

Alex's teeth nipped her earlobe and Piper felt stars explode behind her eyes, peaking suddenly.  
Her legs trembled as she fought to stay upright, a shuddering exhalation rushing from her lungs.

She leaned into the feeling, everything so hot and bright before she eventually started to come back down.

Her head hung forward, forehead coming to rest against the cold tiles as Alex wrapped both arms around her, holding her in place until she recovered.

"What happened?" Piper asked, hoarsely.  
"You came, kid." Alex chuckled. "Did you black out?"  
"No, in the story." She was breathless, but pushed through regardless. "Who walked in?"  
"Oh. It was her Dad. She came as he opened the door."  
"Shit." It was Piper's turn to laugh, although it seemed to take all of her effort to do so. With more help from Alex than she'd like to admit, Piper turned laboriously to face her girlfriend, leaning against her as she waiting for the feeling to return to her body. "What then?"  
"She pushed me away - and I'd been on my knees so I ended up fucking sprawled on their fancy rug, my jeans around my ankles and my glasses  _somewhere_  - and she sat up and said 'Dad, I'm gay.' Then they had a huge argument and I slipped out while they were yelling."  
"She used you?"  
"' _Used_ ' sounds harsh, but," Alex paused, considering. She planted a soft kiss on Piper's lips before she gave her answer. "It wasn't an accident."  
"Did you see her again?"  
"I had some colleagues around campus so we crossed paths a few times, but it wasn't like I had a mobile to keep in touch with. Facebook didn't exist."  
"Mm."

Water pitter-pattered around them and Piper felt peace settle around her shoulders like a shawl.  
Things felt better.

Alex looked down to find that the blonde's eyes were closed.  
"You want to go to bed? It's late."  
"We haven't even showered."  
"We  _showered_. We just didn't  _soap_. We can shower in the morning."  
"But I'm already wet." Piper pouted, evidently caught between her desire to be clean and her need for sleep.

Alex resisted the urge to question Piper's phrasing and instead grabbed the nearest bottle of shower gel from the stand. The least she could do was help.

* * *

Ten minutes later they returned to the bedroom, dry and ready for bed.

Piper scrambled under the sheets, knocking the stack of partially-marked work she'd abandoned earlier onto the floor.  
As Alex stooped to gather it up, Piper's attention turned to her mobile, charging on the bedside table.  
She had four missed calls, all from Larry Bloom.

"I've got a voicemail." She mumbled, perplexed by Larry's sudden insistence after his initial lack of response.  
Tapping the loudspeaker button, she played the message to the room.

" _Hey, Piper, it's me, Larry. Larry Bloom. Uhh, I guess you could say I was surprised to get your call. I didn't reply at first because I thought that maybe it had been a mistake and that you were going to call and say that you'd called the wrong Larry, but then you didn't, so…"_

"Wow. You dated this guy? And other Larrys too?" Alex teased, but Piper held up a finger to her lips.

"...  _Things have been going really well for me lately, so it would be good to catch up, like you said in your message. I'm not sure what you meant when you said you had a 'friend' you'd like me to meet, but dinner tomorrow night sounds great. Just let me know where and when and I'll be there. That's all. This is Larry, by the way. Larry Bloo-"_

The recording ended abruptly, and silence filled the room.  
Piper glanced over at her girlfriend, and to her surprise, Alex was suppressing laughter, eyes affixed on the stack of essays she carried, shoulders heaving with silent mirth.

"What?"  
"I'm sorry, who was that on the phone?" Alex looked up nonchalantly, fighting to keep a straight face. "I missed his name. Five times."  
"Al -"  
"No, it's cute. I think you make him nervous."  
"God only knows how  _you_  would make him feel."  
"Maybe we'll get to find out soon, huh?"  
Piper was nonplussed. "I don't understand."  
"Well, if he and Polly hit it off…" Alex shrugged, then paused. "Speaking of which, he didn't seem all too clear that you were setting him up. Or that your parents would be there. Did you mention any of that in your voicemail to him?"  
"Um…"  
Alex pulled an expression of mock horror. "Piper Chapman. Have you purposely mislead him to get something you want? Are you  _playing_ this nice boy for your own nefarious ends?"

Alex set down the stack of documents and climbed onto the bed, crawling up towards Piper.

The younger woman held her hands out defensively. "I think  _playing_ is a little unfair…"  
"No, I think  _playing_  is apt. You're playing him like Pan played the goddess Selene in Kerenyi. Playing him like Orpheus played his lyre for Hades in the underworld."  
She kept advancing until she was above Piper, hair curtaining their faces as she leaned in for a kiss.

"Wait, am I Orpheus?" Piper paused, pondering. "Does that make you Eurydice?"  
" _Larry_  is Eurydice. I'm pretty sure I'm Hades in this analogy."  
"I always thought Persephone was kind of sexy."  
"Don't go all Anaïs Mitchell on me. You're trying to distract from the fact that you've manipulated this  _poor boy_."

Despite Alex's apparent concern, her grin was Cheshire-cat-esque, and the glint in her eyes told Piper that she didn't dislike it at all.  
Alex shifted on the sheets until she was straddling Piper's hips, and Piper took advantage of her girlfriend's freshly-showered nudity to trail her fingers through the soft hair at the apex of Alex's thighs.  
Reaching up, she cupped the back of Alex's head and tugged her closer, their lips grazing.

"I agree with you on one thing."  
Alex nipped at Piper's bottom lip with her teeth. "What's that?"  
"You're  _definitely_  Hades."

 


	5. Gung Ho

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that this is - checks watch - fifteen days late. Things have been, uh, interesting, over the past few weeks.  
> Quick note: there's a little recreational drug use in this chapter. It's just weed, it's all fine.  
> Also, I got a PM on ff.net from someone who specifically wanted more idle Nicky/Alex chat, so that's in here too.

 

"Are you embarrassed to be seen with me? Is that what this is?"  
"Well, not exactly..."  
"But partly? That's part of it?"

The words drifted through the closed doors of the hall and made their way up to the dais at the front, where Fig was not-so-patiently waiting for the two women to finish their argument.  
They had been going for several minutes, and the only reason Fig hadn't called a stop to it was because such unprofessional behaviour gave her more ammunition for the arsenal.  
In short: she'd been waiting for an opportunity like this.

_The mother of Nicky Nichols had been a very influential figure in Natalie's youth, and it was with great pleasure that she had accepted money from her old family friend when building this educational empire. It was only unfortunate that Nicky herself should come as part of the bargain: the blonde was proving to be better at her job than Natalie would like, and as a consequence, finding an excuse to fire her had been problematic._

"So what is it? Afraid that someone'll find out you like pussy? Or is it the ex-junkie heiress who's cramping your style? 'Cause I can make guesses about my shortcomings  _all day_."  
The answering tone was heavy with affront. "How  _dare_  you! I do not like - "  
There was a pause, and the soft whispered sound that followed failed to translate through the heavy oak doors of the hall.  
"So now you don't like pussy? You seemed to like mine well enough."

Piper's mouth fell open, and she turned to look at Alex, who had been completely stony-faced until that point.  
The room was packed with staff members awaiting the Monday morning briefing, but their chatter had fallen silent when Nicky and Morello's argument had started several minutes before.  
They clearly had no idea that their every word was easily audible to the assembled staff, many of whom were taking great delight in the soap opera occuring.

Giving Piper's hand a gentle squeeze of reassurance, Alex slipped out of her seat and made her way to the exit. All eyes turned in her direction as her chair scraped back against the parquet flooring, but she ignored the attention in favour of stopping her housemate from doing something - more - stupid.  
She had hoped that the argument would ride itself out, or that for once in her life Nicky might realise that this wasn't the ideal time or place to have this conversation.  
Neither had happened, but Alex hoped that she would at least be able to stop them before they embarrassed themselves further.

"I am a  _straight woman_ , Nicky. I like penises, and making babies, and  _men_."

It seemed that Alex was out of luck, and now it sounded like Nicky was too.

"So what was this to you? Some sorta experiment?"

Morello began to cry loudly as Alex pushed the doors open into the foyer.

"Hey, you  _really_  need to take this elsewhere." She kept her voice low, all too aware of how well the sound seemed to travel.  
"Why? Here seems as good a place as any to get dumped." Nicky threw her arms wide, exasperated.  
Morello inhaled deeply, audibly, and rounded on Nicky once more. "You can't get dumped if you weren't in a relationship Nick!" She wailed, before covering her face with her hands and heading for the nearest exit.

The sound of her sobs dissipated as she moved through the corridors, until eventually silence had completely fallen.

Nicky carded her fingers through her hair. "Not my best Friday morning Al, I'm gonna be honest."  
Alex tried her best sympathetic smile. "We'll drink this off later. You coming in?"  
"Eh." Nicky made a noncommittal noise but followed her friend regardless.

They pushed through the doors back into the hall, and Nicky gave an impressive impersonation of visiting royalty as she entered, sending small waves to those who turned to look.

"Nothing to worry about, rehearsals for the end of term play are over, it's guaranteed to be a hit. Our, uh, viral marketing flash mob seems to have gotten your attention, so all you need to do now is get some tickets. Fifty dollars a piece, payable to yours truly. Seating's limited though so get 'em while they're hot."

Nicky's grin was effusive, but Alex had seen that expression a dozen times before. Nicky was hurting, and it was painfully clear to her.

A voice drifted toward them from the podium at the front. "Please sit down, Ms Nichols."  
"Sure thing Fig. Thanks for lettings us steal your limelight for a little while."

Natalie said nothing, waiting instead until a hush had settled throughout the room.  
She followed routine, gave her notices, and dismissed the assembled women, miraculously only a few minutes behind schedule.  
She would deal with Nicky later - let her sweat it out a little in the meantime. She might even wait until Monday morning; there was nothing like a black cloud of apprehension and anxiety to truly ruin a weekend.

* * *

"It's been six hours," Piper said, aiming for comforting but landing instead somewhere close to conciliatory. "Maybe she's not going to talk to you."

They had been huddled around the kitchen table since arriving home from work, and Piper had been doing her best to smooth over Nicky's anxieties, with little success.

"Fig not talking to me for six hours does not a problem solve." Nicky pulled away from the hand that Piper was trying to place reassuringly on her shoulder, in favour of reaching for the bottle of bourbon she'd bought on the way home. "And something tells me I won't be hearing from Lorna any time soon either."  
"What's the worst that can happen though? Fig fires you? It's not like you need the money." Piper again tried to be helpful, falling flat.  
"Ugh." Nicky raised her voice and twisted to face the open doorway. "Vause, tell your girlfriend to stop talking. She's cute but she's making my head hurt."

Alex emerged from the library where she'd been changing records, placing a soft finger on Piper's mouth when she reached her.

"Ssh." She replaced her finger with her lips, kissing Piper gently. "Nicky doesn't need niceness. She needs to stew this out herself."  
"And for the record, just so we're all clear, I know I don't  _need_  the money." Nicky continued, the threat to her relative tranquility now quashed. "But I do need the job. Or a job. And I like where I work."  
"Why do you need the job?" Piper was evidently nonplussed.  
"Nicky needs to be busy. Stillness doesn't lend itself well to - " Alex broke off, all too aware that the end of the sentence wasn't hers to share. "People like us."

" _When you were in the cartel - is that how you and Nicky met?"  
_ " _We were in the same circles, had some of the same friends."  
_ " _You mean, your clients were her friends?" Piper pushed, existing knowledge of Nicky giving her the grounds to do so, and Alex continued in spite of her reservations.  
_ " _I needed a job, and Nicky needed a flatmate. Nicky's mom made a deal with her - if Nicky changed her ways, Mrs Nichols would put in a good word for both of us with Fig at the school. She was one of the biggest donors to Fig's shit, so she had a lot of pull."  
_ " _When you say Nicky had to change her ways..."  
_ _Alex shook her head and pushed her bottle away. "Like I said, that's Nicky's story to tell."_

Nicky slid out of her seat, bottle of booze in one hand and her mobile in the other. "I'll be in my room. Weed later?"  
Alex nodded. "You want some takeout too?"  
"Sure. Chinese. On me."

Piper sat back in her seat, a little frustrated. She hated it when she couldn't fix something.  
Perhaps she could speak to Fig on Nicky's behalf? They had a good relationship thanks to their upbringing together, so maybe it would help.  
Rallying, she decided to see Fig on Monday morning. A sorority-sister style approach surely couldn't do any  _more_  damage.

"You got much to do before you're ready to go?" Alex tossed out over her shoulder, facing away from Piper as she put some cups away in a cupboard.  
"Well, make-up, and a dress, and I said I'd meet Polly at ours -  _hers_  - before we go to the restaurant."  
"You want a lift?"  
"To Polly's?"  
"And the restaurant."

Piper's face brightened. "Yes. Please. If it's not trouble."  
"None at all kid. What time do you want to leave?"  
Piper looked at the clock and paled. "Shit. Half an hour."  
"Alright curse words, let's get you upstairs. Time waits for no man, and Polly waits for no woman."

* * *

Alex put the handbrake on, and the pair glanced up at the apartment block before them.

"It feels weird being back here." Piper murmured. "It's like I never lived here at all, like this is a stranger's house."  
"Do you find yourself  _unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd_?"  
Piper paused, thinking. "Hamlet?"  
Alex was always warmed by Piper's intelligence, and she couldn't stifle her smile. "On the nose. Every time."  
"Wait, let me guess the scene too."  
"Nerd." Alex smirked fondly.  
"Act one -"  
"Easy."  
"Scene… Five?"  
Alex shrugged. "No idea. I just remember that line because it sounds like he says 'anal'."  
Piper rolled her eyes. "You're incorrigible. One last kiss before we get Polly?"  
"Even though I'm incorrigible?"  
"Even though."

Alex grinned, leaning across the gearstick to meet Piper in the passenger seat.

"Are you worried about tonight?" Alex mumbled into Piper's mouth, only half realising she'd asked the question.  
"Don't ask deep things when we're making out." Piper replied, words jumbled by her own tongue meeting Alex's midway.  
"Sorry." Alex grinned into the kiss and compensated by moving closer.

There was the click of one seatbelt, and then another, and soon Alex's hands were roaming over Piper's new dress, pulling her in like the tide.

"Al..." Piper was breathless and hot, splayed fingers carding through her girlfriend's hair. "We've got to go."  
" _I_  don't have to do anything." Alex tugged on Piper's bottom lip with her teeth, scrambling to close the distance between them. " _You_ , on the other hand…"  
Piper laughed breathlessly and pulled back. "Stop. You'll get me in trouble. Again!"  
Alex reached out and ran a hand through Piper's now tousled hair. "Want me to apologise again?"  
"I want you to  _behave_."  
"Might need you to go back to that bit about me being incorrigible, kid."

* * *

"Polly!"  
"Piper! It's so good to see you." Polly stepped aside to let Piper walk in, her face falling when her eyes landed on Alex, still stood in the hallway. "And  _Alex_."  
"In the flesh." The brunette countered.  
"Alex is giving us a lift to the restaurant." Piper replied brightly to the question which hadn't been asked.  
"Is that necessary? We can just call a taxi."  
"I'm already here, it's fine." Alex mumbled begrudgingly, trying not to actively grimace.  
"Well." Polly turned back into the apartment, and Alex - although uninvited - followed her in.

Padding away in her stockinged feet, Polly called to Piper over her shoulder. "Have you heard from Larry? Is he still coming?"  
"He text me at lunchtime saying how much he was looking forward to dinner, so it sounds like he's on board." Piper raised her voice to continue their conversation as Polly moved away.  
"Great. Good." Polly's responses were muffled now as she back-channeled from inside her bedroom on the other side of the apartment, and Alex's caught Piper's anxious gaze.

" _I think he thinks this is a date._ " Piper whispered in hushed tones.  
" _It is, isn't it?"_  Alex shrugged. " _You're setting him up with Polly._ "  
" _Not a date with Polly._ " Piper shook her head furiously. " _With me._ "  
" _Why would he think that?_ " Alex's whispers inadvertently lifted in volume.  
" _I kept telling him that I wanted to introduce him to someone, and he just kept saying how good it would be to see me!_ "  
"Oh my god." Alex smirked, not even bothering to lower her voice any longer. She couldn't help but laugh; the whole situation was already pretty ridiculous.

"Everything okay?" Polly called from the end of the corridor, hobbling out into the hallway with one shoe on, the other mid-fasten.

Alex burst out into an inadvertent guffaw, trying unsuccessfully to smother the outburst with a cough.

"What did I miss?" Polly stood before them now, coat and bag in hand.  
"Just Alex being an idiot." Piper smiled blithely, overruling any mischievous response Alex may have had to have offer. "Ready to go?"

Polly nodded, but not before giving Alex some suspicious side-eye. There was a reason she wasn't keen on her.

"Got the keys,  _schnookums_?" Piper was winding her up on purpose now, and Alex knew it.  
Holding the car keys aloft, she jingled them. "After you,  _love muffin._ "

Polly made a retching noise, and guided her companions out into the hallway, locking the door behind them.

This was going to be a long night.

* * *

Nicky was sprawled on the sofa when Alex returned, staring sullenly at the mobile phone she was holding aloft.

Alex kicked off her shoes and landed heavily in the seat beside her.

"So I just dropped off my girlfriend for a dinner date with her ex-boyfriend, her best friend that hates me, and her Republican parents who know  _nothing about me_."  
"Morello isn't answering my messages. And I think I'm going to get fired."  
"You just want to go back and forth talking about all the truly dreadful and horrible shit we have to slog through on a daily basis?"  
Nicky glanced up. Alex was smiling at her, and she relented. "I guess. Wanna get high first?"  
Alex breathed a sigh of relief. " _Fuck_  yes."

She hauled herself off the sofa to fetch some beers from the fridge, and found that Nicky had retrieved everything they needed in the meantime.

Her housemate was sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against the sofa, halfway through rolling a joint when Alex cracked off the bottle caps. This was clearly something she'd started when Alex had been out.

"Look," Nicky paused her preparations to gesture vaguely in Alex's direction. "I am like a bean-flicking mother Teresa. I am a sexual Steve Jobs. I don't get why I'm not getting at least  _something_ here."  
"I don't think it's you. I think it's her."  
"Lorna?"  
"Yeah. Like you said, you're a great lay. You're funny, you're smart. You're not the problem."

Nicky tilted her head back until it rested on the sofa cushions where Alex sat, hand laid across her heart in an uncharacteristically sincere sign of affection. "For the record, I think you need your eyes testing. But that was actually a pretty nice thing for you to say. Blondie's making you soft."  
"My eyes aren't the ones to determine the quality of the sex. And you're welcome, for this single compliment that I give as a gift."  
"Did you get a gift receipt? It doesn't fit."

Alex tauntingly nudged Nicky's head off the sofa with her foot, and Nicky yawned, involuntarily but almost in response, long and loud.

"I feel like this is all just a poor replacement for the drugs I miss, y'know?"  
Alex laughed, a sound empty of mirth and heavy with truth, and it echoed around the otherwise quiet house. "Yeah. Heroin was the best girlfriend ever had. She always made me feel better and she was always available..."  
"... But even the best girlfriend will fuck you over, right?" Alex glanced down at her, still and solemn for a moment. "I get it, Chief. Chapman seems safe though."

Nicky returned to her rolling, ever the perfectionist. She was also surprisingly good at needlepoint, but that was a revelation for another time.

"So are you meeting the Chapmans tomorrow?"  
"Jesus, I hope not." Alex scoffed.  
"Give 'em a break. Some people have imaginary friends; I think you have imaginary enemies. It'll probably be fine." Nicky reached out and took a mouthful from the beer Alex had brought for her. "At least you've got a girlfriend whose parents hate you. Think on that, eh?"

Alex abandoned her alcohol in favour of choosing a record to listen to.

She flicked idly to through the vinyls on the shelf beside the sofa. "Got a music preference?"  
"You got Patti?"  
Alex scoffed. "You know I've got Patti. Patti was playing earlier."  
"Have you got, uh..." Nicky, back still to Alex, made some ambiguous noises which may have been supposed to sound like guitars. She strummed the air for several seconds.  
"I've got 'Gung Ho', if that's what  _that_  was." Alex smothered her laughter.  
"Huh." Nicky sounded surprised.  
"What?"  
"I mean, yeah, that's what I'm after. But 'Gung Ho' is a pretty shitty Patti album. I didn't think you'd actually have it." Nicky was smirking as she replied, and Alex hurled a cushion in her direction, effectively teased.

Nicky dodged the projectile and covered the tray of supplies in front of her. "Christ, watch the weed."  
Alex set the record playing and slid down onto the floor next to her housemate. "Have you met them?"  
"Chapman's parents?" Nicky nodded, lighting up the joint and inhaling deeply. "Yep. Long time ago."  
"And?  
"Eh." Nicky shrugged, passing the spliff. "Every stereotype you can imagine still  _only just_  scratches the surface of how deeply they voted for Trump despite seeing themselves as Sanders supporters."  
Alex returned it after inhaling. "I am so glad we're getting stoned right now."  
Steepling her fingers around the bottle in her lap, she slumped back again the sofa with a sigh. "I think the worst bit is, 'cause I'm serious about Piper, I'm in this for the long haul."  
"Why is that 'the worst bit'?"  
"At least if we broke up, I wouldn't have to deal with them."  
"It's okay. After tonight she'll probably come home with a boyfriend anyway." Nicky dug an elbow into Alex's ribs, and took a mouthful of her beer. "Barry sounds like a catch. White, Jewish,  _male_. You'll be lucky if she even returns her house keys."  
"Number one, it's 'Larry'. And number two, fuck you."  
"Ah, let's not. You're practically a married woman."

* * *

Several hours and multiple beers later, Alex clambered under the bed covers in a particularly ungainly manner.

The sheets were chilly, the sun having set before she even dropped Piper off, and there had been nobody to warm the bed in her absence.

The room was lit by the moon, a cold shimmering blue, and Alex had to clean her glasses before she could see her mobile phone screen clearly.  
She could've simply turned on the bedside lamp, but she was tired, and already squinting through the darkness.

Opening a new message, she typed slowly against the screen's keyboard.

_I miss you. I hope it's going well._

It wasn't even that late, but Alex had already been tired before she and Nicky had settled in for the evening. Her head was fuzzy from the alcohol, fluffy from the smoke, and she wanted nothing more than to curl up around Piper and sleep for a long, long time.

She could have half of that, she supposed, fighting against the closing of her eyes to finish the text.

_I miss you._

She had said that twice now, but the sentiment still stood.

_See you soon?_

Question mark was perhaps unnecessary, but she left it.

Correcting a few typos, she tapped the send button.

Slipping her glasses from her face and placing them as gently as she could on the bedside table, she closed her eyes.  
Piper would be home soon enough.


	6. Let's Get Associated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are now two Carols in the OITNB universe: Carol Chapman and Carol Denning. Don't get me wrong, I know which I prefer, but just for clarification: the Carol mentioned in this story is definitely the first Carol, Mrs Chapman, Piper's mother. Just in case anyone was confused...
> 
> Thank you all, as always, for your reviews.

 

Carol and Bill Chapman had arrived early, Piper was discomforted to see, and they waved she and Polly across the street eagerly.

"Where's Larry?" Polly murmured as they made their way towards the older couple, smiling beatifically in an almost grotesque fashion.  
Piper had little time for such niceties, and kept her eyes glued to the pavement, nerves failing to steel her. "He should be here soon."  
"And he knows he's supposed to be my boyfriend, right?"  
Piper froze, breaking step. "Oh,  _shit_."  
"What?" Polly stalled with her. "Wait. I know that face. Please tell me he's in on this."

Piper's blank expression gave her all the reply she needed.

"Christ, Piper. You had one job."  
"Well, now, let's give me some credit." Piper countered, picking up the pace again. "I had to get in touch, and convince him to come, and…"  
"And you had to explain why he was invited. Which you didn't."

Piper tried to give her friend a reassuring smile as they drew within earshot of her parents. "It'll be fine. I'll fix it."  
Polly pulled her nicest face as they approached the elder members of the Chapman family, but leant into Piper on their approach. "I don't know who you're trying to convince, but this doesn't feel very  _fine_  to me."

* * *

They had been in the restaurant making polite small talk for several minutes by the time Larry finally arrived.  
He was out of breath and sweating, a slightly disheveled bunch of flowers clutched tightly in his fist as he made his way through the crowded room towards them.

"Larry!" Piper rose to her feet as he approached, and pulled him close.

Her mother clucked behind her, full of questions and queries, which she ignored in favour of kissing Larry on the cheek.  
He hadn't been anticipating an embrace, but he leaned into it all the same.

"It's so good to see you." His aftershave and stubble made Piper long for Alex, but she brushed it aside.

"I need a favour." Her voice was barely audible over the din of the restaurant, but she knew a white knight when she hugged one.  
"Are you in trouble?" He whispered, arms still around her. Of course he was eager to save her from something already. She stifled a nervous laugh.  
"Can you see my friend at the table?"  
"Polly? I've met Polly."  
"I need you to be her date."  
"What?" His bewilderment was muffled by the screech of Polly's chair being pushed back from the table behind them.

The brunette approached, loudly greeting him with a distinct absence of tact or consent. "Sweetie!"

Piper stepped back to give them room, and despite her reservations, she had to admit that Larry compensated admirably for the short notice.

" _Honey_." He mumbled, a little breathlessly as Polly embraced him. "How was work?"  
"Oh, you know…" Polly shrugged, taking him by the hand and leading him to the empty seat at the table.

"Larry!" Carol reached across the white tablecloth to take his hands in hers, an affectionate squeeze in greeting. "So  _you're_  the boyfriend Polly told us about. When Piper finished with you we thought we'd never see you again, and I said to Bill, we were so disappointed that things didn't work out with Piper, weren't we darling?" Carol broke off to give Bill his opportunity to agree, which he didn't. "But here you are!"  
"Well," Larry paused, evidently a little uncomfortable. "I'd hate to be  _the one who got away_."

There was a smattering of polite laughter around the table as the waiter came to take their drinks order.  
Piper tried to convey reassurance through a glance in Polly's direction, but Larry intercepted the look with warm eyes that made her wonder why he'd agreed to this.  
She fervently hoped it wasn't to get him into her good books; if he was aiming to please anyone at the table, it  _really_  needed to be Polly.  
The brunette herself caught the affectionate expression on her supposed-boyfriend's face as he gazed at his ex, and she leaned out from behind him to affix Piper with a pointed stare.

Fortunately, the drinks were swift to arrive, and Piper was finishing her second prosecco by the time the main arrived, when talk finally turned to her own love life.  
She had done well to keep the talk focused on her parents until that point, but she knew the questions would be inevitable.

"So darling, why haven't you brought anyone to the dinner tonight?" Her mother's tone was inquiring and yet, somehow, simultaneously pointed.  
"Oh, you know," She gestured vaguely with her fork. "I've been so busy with work."  
"But you had time to move out?" Carol Chapman dabbed politely at the corners of her mouth with her napkin, having taken only a single mouthful of her food. "Surely it would've been better for you to stay with Polly and help with Popi?"

Piper cast her eyes in Polly's direction, hoping for some help. Polly studiously studied her dish, taking hold of Larry's empty hand as it sat on the tablecloth beside her in a terribly false gesture of affection. Larry started, startled, but gave Polly's grasp a limp squeeze in return.

Piper clearly was getting no help from either of them, particularly as Larry was more concerned with filling in the gaps in his own knowledge of her life.

"Well, since Polly is now in a  _serious relationship_ , I felt it time I move out, give them some space."  
"She's selfless like that." Polly interjected, only slightly bitterly.  
Bill raised a glass in the direction of Piper's oldest friend. "Here's to that."

Piper felt nauseated; her parents clearly thought all was well, which was good, but the tension rising from Polly was discomforting. She had a tendency to go a little rogue if she felt Piper needed taking down a peg or two, and this particular evening was ripe with opportunity.

"So, how did you two meet? Through Piper I assume?" Carol was back at it, her romance radar aimed directly at the new couple this time, and Larry audibly gulped in reply.  
"Larry and I forged such a strong friendship during his relationship with Piper, things naturally just shifted into place from there. Didn't they, honey?"  
Larry looked from Polly, to Piper, and back again. "They did. Absolutely. Yes."

He took a large mouthful of his martini, a drink Bill had ordered for 'the men at the table'. Larry preferred beer, and Piper had experienced a moment of pure schadenfreude as she had watched his internal battle between what  _he wanted_  and what  _Bill wanted him to want_.

"Isn't that lovely Bill?" Carol chimed in again. "So now all we need to do is find someone for you to settle down with, Piper dear."

Piper shifted in her seat, wondering how best to proceed with this line of conversation.  
She needed to tell her parents about Alex, preferably sooner rather than later.  
She hated secrets, and she didn't want her girlfriend to become one.

In that moment, Polly took the decision making and deliberation out of her hands. "But you're already seeing someone, aren't you Piper?"  
Larry dropped his cutlery with a clatter. "You are?"

For once even Bill looked interested, as all those unclear about Piper's love life suddenly leant in.

Piper was slack-jawed in the face of Polly's admission, and narrowed her eyes in her friend's direction before forming a coherent answer. She knew that Polly was unhappy with her, but this was uncalled for.

She shrugged, smiling benignly as though it wasn't a big deal. "It's just someone at work. We haven't been dating for very long."  
"And you didn't want to bring him tonight?" Carol's tone was unreservedly suspicious, and Piper squirmed inwardly.

This was exactly the kind of thing she'd wanted to avoid.

"I thought your school prided itself on its all-female staff. ' _The women of today teaching the women of tomorrow._ ' That's what the website said." There was an awkward pause as all eyes turned curiously to Larry, who shrugged. "What? After you got in touch I looked at your Facebook. You said you worked at some school I'd never heard of, so I googled it. Did you know it's supposed to be the best private school in the state?"

"You  _googled_  her?" Polly sounded incredulous, and a little annoyed.

Larry floundered, before righting his rapidly sinking vessel and placing an arm firmly around his girlfriend for the evening. "I wanted to make sure that our friend was working at a reputable establishment." He puffed up as though he was proud of himself, but Polly didn't seem particularly impressed.

"That's very kind of you Larry. Piper's been distant recently so it's good to know that she's got you to keep an eye on her." Carol beamed.

Both Polly and Piper bristled at this, but neither made any comment. Piper was too reluctant to reopen the ' _all-female_ ' can of worms, and Polly didn't want to give Larry any more opportunities to peacock around the dinner party.

They locked eyes across the table, and Polly broke the ice with an apologetic smile. She mouthed an apology to her friend, and Piper returned the gesture.

Tonight was absolutely not going to plan, but it could be so much worse, Piper acknowledged. She hadn't fallen out with anyone - Polly had forgiven her for her earlier, forgetful mishap - and Larry was improvising as best he could.  
As long as her love life wasn't brought up again…

"So what's the name of this mystery man?"  
Piper was brought out of her reverie in a cloud of confusion, and she gestured hesitantly at the man sitting beside her. "It's... Larry? You've met before. He's been here all night."  
Carol laughed airily and Polly joined in. "I think your Mom means the person you're dating." Polly's clarification was loaded, words heavy, and Piper had to hold back her groan.

This could all be so painless if her mother wasn't so nosy.

"If she doesn't want to tell us, she doesn't have to." Bill chimed in, reminding Piper that he could be thoroughly reasonable if the case called for it.  
"But it would be nice to know." Larry countered, twisting in his seat so that he was facing Piper, but unfortunately leaving his back to Polly, who cleared her throat loudly.  
"Are we staying for dessert? I'm sure we all have work to be up for in the morning." She asked pointedly.  
"Carol and I are here for the weekend, so we have no need to turn in early. And I think only retail workers find themselves up before the sun on a Saturday." Bill replied jovially, but looked around for a waiter to collar nonetheless.

Polly placed her hand softly on Larry's arm and he seemed to acquiesce, returning to his original position at the table.

"I actually do have to be up in the morning. Deadline to meet, you know? The burden of a journalist." When he spoke, the way he looked at Polly was almost affectionate, and she turned a little pink in his gaze, smiling back at him.

Piper began to wonder whether maybe the evening wasn't a total bust after all. Larry hadn't been a great boyfriend for her, but that wasn't to say there wasn't something redeemable in him for Polly.

Carol sat back in her seat, disappointed by the diversion but ultimately undeterred. "You could at least tell us a little about him, this new love interest."  
Piper sighed and placed her head in her hands. "We met at work: we're the only English teachers in the school, so we have that in common. Nicky introduced me, Marka Nichols' daughter."

She made an effort to make it seem like she was giving more information than she actually was, but her mother wasn't fooled.

"Hmm." Carol made a noise which was either one of disapproval or distaste; Piper couldn't quite discern the difference, despite her years of hearing both. "And you live with Nicole now?"  
"I do."  
"You haven't even given me your new address." Carol chided, opening her handbag and retrieving a fountain pen and a small notebook. "Put it in there."

Piper accepted the pen and paper and reluctantly scribbled down the details, trying her best to blot out her mother's continued rambling in the background.

"Danny's just bought a new property, you know. Beach front. It's beautiful." Piper passed the pad back and her mother stowed it away. "He had us down there during his first weekend, and the views really are breathtaking. That doctor's salary must be something."  
"And how's Cal? Where's he living now?" Piper recognised that ignoring updates about her older brother could be perceived as callow, but she had little time to hear about Danny's success. He'd stopped speaking to Piper in anything past a perfunctory manner many years ago.

Bill chuckled before waving a waiter over, and Carol carried on blithely, an air of dismissiveness creeping into her tone. "Cal's living in some backwoods hovel. We keep offering to lend him some money to help him buy something a little more respectable but he swears he's happy where he his."  
"And he's still with Neri?"  
"As far as I know. I haven't asked." Carol drained her fourth glass of wine and reached for the almost-empty bottle.  
"Mom!" Piper scolded.  
"Well, what am I supposed to say? When I last saw him he wouldn't stop talking about how he's gotten into the 'postmodern ice-cream movement'. Apparently he'd been doing some experiments with nitrogen. I mean, Danny went through phases, but…"

Piper already knew how her younger brother was, as she spoke to Cal almost weekly on the phone. Still, he had been a nice distraction from Danny, and any opportunity to bring up Neri - Cal's wife, a woman her mother vocally opposed " _for all her liberal ways_ " - was always a delight.

Bill paid for the meal while everyone was distracted.

On the other side of the table, much to Piper's growing chagrin, Larry and Polly were murmuring to one another in slightly hushed tones, Polly tossing her hair over her shoulder in clear flirtation, while her mother chuntered on about the state of the education system.

Piper back-channeled to the latter while grimly watching her friend and ex-boyfriend. Her earlier moment of quiet optimism - that maybe the dinner could lead onto an actual date for Polly - had rapidly mutated in a strange concoction consisting of one part jealousy and two parts bemusement.

Larry was her ex, and sure, she'd agreed to his attendance in exchange for Polly's cover, but that didn't detract from the weirdness of the whole situation.

She had been happy to leave Larry behind for a reason: he was condescending, his arrogance was based on nothing but a sense of patriarchal entitlement, and he had all the pretension of a Pulitzer-prize winning writer, despite having only been published a handful of times. Sure, he had his merits, but for Piper they had always been overshadowed by his unearned confidence.

And now here he was, brushing his fingertips across the hand of her best friend in the whole world, who was looking at him like he was a puppy in a pet-shop window, eyes full of wonderment and a flourishing fondness that made Piper sick to her stomach.

"Well, this has been a great night, but I do have to go. 'Being a well-favored man is a gift of fortune, but writing and reading comes naturally to me.'  _William Shakespeare_." Larry remarked casually, before rising to his feet and producing his wallet from his jacket pocket. "How much do I owe you Bill?"

 _Oh_ , Piper thought. _He's on first-name terms with my father now_. When had that happened?

"Nothing, dear boy. It was just a pleasure to see you again." Bill leant across the table to shake Larry's hand.

Piper wondered if they would still be shaking hands if she had pointed out just how badly Larry had just butchered that Shakespeare quote, but thought better of it. Alex would've hated that, so she held her tongue.

"Ms Chapman." Larry nodded at Piper's mother, and Piper noted that he had reverted to the more formal address when bidding her goodnight. At least he was smart enough to acknowledge where the power lay.

"Larry, it's been lovely. We must catch up again soon. Hopefully before there are wedding bells in the air, mm?" With this, she sent an expression which was presumably supposed to resemble an impish sense of mischief in Polly's direction, but instead it seemed somehow gauche, presumably only to those who knew the context of the evening's oddness.  
Larry laughed it off and kissed her on the cheek. "Expect your invite in the post."

Carol's drink intake revealed itself when she released something akin to a girlish giggle, and she gave Larry's hands a squeeze.  
He turned to face Piper and spread his arms wide, indicating that he wanted a hug. She accepted reluctantly and he pulled her close.

The aftershave she had smelt earlier now blended with the liquor oozing from his pores, and she flashed back to all the evenings they'd shared in low-lit bars on the lower side of Manhattan, where she'd pandered to his podcast ideas and thought herself so lucky to be dating a writer.

"Tonight was weird," He whispered into her hair, breath hot against her neck. "But I'm glad I came." Pulling back, he held her at arm's length, hands at the top of her biceps as he appraised her. "It was good to see you."

Piper smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. She was empty of emotion, too tired to pretend more than she had to. If she gave him an inch, he would take a mile, so instead she gave him nothing. "See you later Larry."

Hurt flashed across his face for the briefest moment, before he gathered his thoughts and recovered, turning to Polly with a shit-eating grin on his lips.

"Walk me out?"

Polly was on her feet before Piper could comprehend the implications of his question, and before she knew it, she was watching her friend standing in the street outside, being kissed goodnight by a man she'd hoped to never see again, streetlights illuminating their intimacy like an indecent stained-glass window.

"What a lovely couple." Piper distantly registered her mother over her shoulder, and turned away from the lurid scene outside the restaurant in favour of speaking to her father instead.

"Thank you for dinner. That was a nice gesture."

"I know a teacher's wages aren't much, and your little soap business is still getting its feet off the ground. It was the least I could do." Bill's eyes were warm and Piper was reminded of how much she liked her father sometimes. He was a good man, despite his shortcomings, although Piper acknowledged that the same disclaimer could probably be applied to almost anyone.

Polly came in from the cold and Piper stood, handing her the coat she'd abandoned on the back of her chair.

"Ready for home?"  
"Sure."  
"Breakfast tomorrow, girls?" Carol chimed in.  
"I'm so sorry, I'm busy tomorrow. I have a meeting in a department store about getting some of our soap in."  
Piper's face lit up. " _Our soap?_ " Polly had had some success recently with smaller stores taking their stock, but a department store was a different sort of deal. "I should come along!"

As with every recent meeting, Polly brushed her off, and Piper once again resented being the 'silent' partner in the company.  
"Oh no, it's fine. Your parents have come to see you, I can handle this." And with no further ado, Polly rounded the table to thank the older members of the party for the meal and their companionship.

Carol enthused about Larry for a solid sixty seconds before Piper intervened, bidding her parents goodnight and promising to call them in the morning about breakfast.

* * *

As the two younger women made their way out into the street, Polly sighed, and the look on her face took Piper back to every schoolgirl crush she'd had to hear her friend blush about on the bus home.

"So when's the wedding?" The humour crept from Piper's voice as soon as they were out of earshot of the evening's venue - as though out of fear that the building itself might judge her thinly veiled discomfort - but Polly brushed it off.  
"Ha ha." She answered drily. "I actually had a nice night. Be happy for me."  
"You had a nice night  _with my ex_."  
"After I saved your ass."  
"... Before dropping me right back in it again." Piper's fists curled and uncurled at her sides, but she said nothing more.

They walked on in silence for a little longer before Polly piped up again.  
"He gave me his number. We're going for coffee next week. That's all."  
"So he hasn't proposed yet?" Piper managed to sound cheeky this time, and when she caught Polly's eye, they were both smiling.  
"No, but you're not exactly lining yourself up to be my maid of honour."  
"What about the maid of dishonour? If I tell you what he likes in bed, does that make me more or less likely to be a member of the bridal party?"

They'd reached a taxi rank by this point, and paused sadly as they acknowledged without words that they were now heading in opposite directions.

"Text me tomorrow? About the meeting?" Piper knew she sounded a little plaintive, but she couldn't help it. She'd been drinking and her emotions were all tangled up. The potential success for their start-up was making her feel positive in a way that she hadn't since Alex had dropped her off all those hours ago.  
"Sure. I'll give you a call."  
"And maybe you could come over for coffee?" Piper could feel herself clutching at straws now, but she was beginning to realise that she'd missed her friend since moving out. Her own fault, she conceded. And the wine's.

"I'm free Sunday." Polly nodded, before bundling Piper up in a hug. "Thanks for tonight."  
"No, thank  _you_."  
"Alright boozy." Polly pulled open the back passenger door of the nearest cab and helped Piper inside. "Off to bed. Text me when you're home safe."

Before Piper could contest Polly's assessment of her slight inebriation, the door had been closed and the taxi was pulling away from the curb.  
Piper gave the driver her address and sat back in her seat, forehead against the window as she watched the city lights pass by.

Tonight could've been worse.

Tomorrow could only be better.


	7. Nobody's Daughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! Thanks for sticking around, it's much appreciated.
> 
> We're currently approaching Christmas - both irl and in the narrative! - which is my favourite time of year. I've had Christmases where nobody could afford gifts (apart from the gift of the house not being repossessed) and I've had Christmases when I managed get everybody something, so I just wanted to say that I hope you can all manage to have a great festive season, regardless of what you celebrate or who you live with.
> 
> Please leave a review. That would be a lovely festive gift.

 

The dinner party hadn't been a total disaster, Piper mused as her head hit the pillow.

She couldn't remember paying the taxi driver after the journey home, or even climbing out of the car, but she could just about recall the feel of her house key flush in the front door, the press of her feet as she padded up the stairs to bed, and the warmth of her girlfriend as she clambered under the covers.

Alex awoke briefly to roll onto her side, planting a soft kiss on the blonde's forehead as she draped a hazy arm across the younger woman's waist.  
"How bad was it?" Her breath was peppermint toothpaste mixed with the beery height of hops, and the smell of something else, something plant-based and herbal _,_  was trapped in her hair.  
Piper smiled into the fug of Alex's evening and snuggled in. "It was actually okay."  
"And they took the news alright?"  
"The news?"  
"About you and me."  
"Oh." There was a pause. "It didn't really come up."

Piper was already drifting off to sleep, so she missed the way Alex's body slumped down into the mattress, heavy with the weight of disappointment.  
The feeling that Alex could be kept confined to Piper's closet for a little while longer was frustrating, but the call was Piper's to make, at the end of the day.  
She had hoped to establish what Piper's plans were for tomorrow so that she knew when to make herself scarce, but the soft dozing noises coming from Piper told her that this would have to wait until morning.  
She had waited all evening for Piper to come home, and now she was here, in her arms, Alex knew that she could wait a little longer.

* * *

Nicky awoke with a start.

She had been dreaming that she was dressed as a dog, sat at a piano, cracking jokes to an audience of one in a dimly lit room.

" _How many narcissists does it take to screw in a light bulb? Just one: she holds the light bulb and the whole world revolves around her!_ "

Nicky had always had weird post-weed dreams.

Stretching, she knuckled the sleep from her eyes and took a few deep breaths.  
Why was she awake?

The doorbell chimed downstairs, and Nicky vaguely acknowledged that the same sound had interrupted her stand-up routine.  
They had a visitor.

She tugged on a black t-shirt - pilfered from Alex - and a pair of jersey shorts. She wasn't sure who the shorts belonged to - Stella, perhaps? Although that  _particular_ extended one-night stand hadn't been revisited for many months now - and made her way blearily down to the hallway, hollering all the while.

"I'm comin', Christ. I got really high last night, and I'll be honest with ya - " She hauled open the front door to be suddenly faced with Bill and Carol Chapman. "... I could'a done with the lie in. Mr and Mrs Chapman!"  
"Nicole. Nice to see you." Carol did her best to force a smile, but it looked more like a gurn, and everyone within earshot knew she was lying anyway.  
"I wish I could say the same." Nicky mumbled, before brightening her tone and raising her voice, hoping desperately that somehow one of her roommates might hear her. "So what brings you both here, to our house,  _Piper's parents_ , on this beautiful morning?"  
"Piper was supposed to contact us about meeting for breakfast. But as it's now," Carol checked her watch pointedly. "Ten thirty and breakfast time is almost over, Bill and I thought we'd stop by and see the house while we waited for Piper to get ready. I assume she's awake?"  
"Uhh..." Nicky faltered, brushing her leonine hair back as she wondered how best to salvage the situation. "Sure. Yeah, I think I heard her in the shower. I guess she wanted to be bright eyed and bushy tailed before getting in touch, huh?"

Nicky stepped aside to let them both into the house, which was fortunately relatively tidy.  
In a minimalist design like the one Nicky's mother had created, it was difficult to have clutter without the place looking immediately offensive, and as a consequence she and Alex were conscientious when it came to keeping the house's shared areas clear of mess.  
Their bedrooms weren't as well kept, but any 'communal spaces' were usually clear, and Nicky thanked herself mentally for this inadvertent preparation.

"Come on in, make yourselves at home. I'll get the coffee machine going, and uh, I'll just go see what Piper's up to."

Nicky lead them into the kitchen and set to prepping some coffees, before exiting abruptly to dash upstairs.  
It was harder than she'd imagined to hammer on Alex's bedroom door without arousing suspicion from the Chapmans below, and she was particularly relieved when Piper herself answered the call.

"Everything okay?" The blonde looked like she was still half asleep, which was endearing but unhelpful.  
"So here's the thing," Nicky began, skipping past the pleasantries in favour of finding a solution. "Your parents are here. They just arrived, and apparently you're supposed to be having breakfast with them or something?"  
Piper blanched, suddenly wide awake. She felt like she'd just been doused in cold water. "Oh,  _shit_."  
"I can maybe buy you ten minutes,  _max_ , but I think that's my limit."  
"Thank you.  _Thank you._ "

Nicky smothered a laugh at Piper's panic and turned on her heel.  
Time to flex her rusty small-talk muscles.

* * *

By the time Piper had applied a little make-up and used enough dry shampoo to give the illusion of newly-showered hair - although she was doubtful that she'd fool her mother - fifteen minutes had passed.  
She'd thrown on a loose-fitting pale blue shirt and her nicest jeans, sliding some deck shoes onto her feet before heading downstairs with a rhythm that she hoped conveyed some sort of fresh-faced exuberance.

"Mom, Dad!" She embraced each of them as they perched at the table, Nicky holding court from her seat on one of the kitchen worktops.

They seemed ill at ease, in stark contrast to Nicky, whose broad grin and twinkling eyes suggested that Piper had arrived in the nick of time.  
Her housemate continued her one-sided conversation blithely, in spite of Piper's arrival; Nicky was never one to let a story go unfinished.

"So I guess the lesson is God can make a donkey talk? But what I wanna know is why did God let the donkey get whipped a bunch until he finally gave him the power of speech? I mean, whatever. God also let six million Jews die in the Holocaust, so he might just be phoning things in at this point."

 _Oh my god_. Piper placed herself firmly between her parents and Nicky, as though she could somehow prevent any more damage. Based on her parents' faces, it was already too little too late.

"So, breakfast?"  
"Yes, I think that would be wise." Bill sounded immeasurably relieved at the prospect of getting away from Nicky.  
"You weren't answering your phone dear. So we thought, this way we could at least see the house." Carol commented, casting an eye at the art on the walls as she rose from her stool. "Perhaps another time, we could have a tour?"  
"My Mom had great taste. For all I'm glad the spiteful bitch is gone, she really did a number on the interior design." Nicky chimed in, and while Bill fought the urge to sigh loudly, Carol seemed to have figured out how to block her out.

Everyone was on their feet by now, and Piper had managed to lead her parents out into the foyer by starting to talk to them and walking slowly out of the room.  
They were been all-too-happy to leave Nicky behind and made their way straight over to the front door, eager to leave.  
Piper hovered in the middle of the open space as she cast around for the handbag she'd abandoned in her sleepy state the night before.

"I'm sorry I didn't get in touch." She murmured absently, wandering around the almost-empty area as her parents hovered in the shadows of her periphery, front door now open and the outdoors beckoning them to brunch. "My phone died last night, and I plugged it in, but I guess I must not have turned the switch on because it hadn't charged when I woke up, and..."

Piper's monologue of made-up excuses was interrupted by a commotion on the landing above them, and everyone looked up in time to see a very pale woman in a white undershirt, bare arms covered with inked illustrations and raven-black hair cascading over her shoulders as she made her way down the steps towards them.

She wore nothing but a pair of grey briefs below the waist, legs long and startling in their nakedness.

Her eyes landed on Piper, the only person directly in who stood directly in her line of sight as she descended the stairs.

"I am fucking wiped, kid. I don't know how much weed Nicky and I had last night, but whatever that was plus six beers means I should still be in bed, and so should you." She noted the blonde's anxious expression and paused. "Hey Pipes, when a girl makes you cum the way that I do, you should  _always_  be thrilled to see her."

The younger woman froze, a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming truck that Alex hadn't yet noticed, and it was only when Carol Chapman cleared her throat loudly from her place on the doormat, that Alex realised just how badly she'd fucked up.

" _Shit_." Alex stopped stock still on the bottom step, running a hand through her hair. So much for making a good first impression.

"Piper." Mrs Chapman's voice was tight, a taut wire of apprehension, thrumming with disapproval. "Who is this?"  
"This? This, is..." The young blonde tailed off.

Piper's fight or flight reflex had always been fairly unreliable, and in this moment it offered her approximately nothing.

She heard the creak of a floorboard nearby as Nicky emerged from the kitchen doorway, steaming mug of coffee clutched tightly in her hands, and she could feel the simmering tension radiating from her girlfriend at the foot of the stairs.

The moment seemed still, paused, trapped in amber and crystallised for people in museums to ponder for years to come about how it had all gone  _so horribly wrong_.

Rather than be yet another spectator in her own narrative, she took a deep breath, steeling herself for the inevitable disappointment she was so accustomed to when it came to her parents. Smiling, she began to mete out the truth in measurable chunks.

"This is my colleague, Alex."  
 _True.  
_ "We share the English department at work."  
 _Also not a lie, but..._  
"I thought you said you shared the department with a man?" Carol enquired inquisitively. "There's just two of you teaching English, you said last night."

" _You could at least tell us a little about him, this new love interest."  
_ _Piper sighed and placed her head in her hands. "We met at work: we're the only English teachers in the school, so we have that in common._

"You  _assumed_  that my colleague was male, Mom. Alex is the only other English teacher at school."  
"But you said...". Carol froze, and in the doorway, Bill sighed again. It seemed to be his go-to response to any undesirable situation he was faced with. Piper felt as though she should've been keeping a tally.

Alex shifted her weight uncomfortably and tightened her grip on the banister. The wood groaned beneath her grip but she refrained from causing any further disruption.  
Piper seemed to be making headway, and although Alex didn't initially understand how, the Chapmans had evidently divined the truth from the evidence before them.  
In fairness, Alex's earlier greeting couldn't really have been a bigger clue.

It was as though an almighty blanket had fallen on the room, Carol Chapman's voice barely above a whisper when she spoke again, stepping closer to her daughter as though being nearer to the puzzle might help her to solve it.

" _Piper Elizabeth Chapman_." Alex's own mother had never used that tone on her, but Alex could interpret the meaning well enough. "Are you dating a  _woman_?"

Piper's spine straightened, and when she rolled her shoulders back she was a good inch or two taller than her mom. Alex wondered if she always stooped when she was in their company, and made a mental note to mention it later.

"Yes Mom. Alex and I have been seeing each other for some time now."  
"Oh Piper, for heaven's sake."  
"Heaven doesn't have anything to do with this, Mom. I have a girlfriend that I love. So, there." She finished a little petulantly, taking a step away from her parents and moving a little closer to Alex, even if only to block their view of her underwear.

Carol looked exasperated, and Bill fished their car keys out of his pocket to make clear his intention to leave.

"So, does that mean you're officially -"  
"It means that I  _officially_  have a girlfriend."  
"Dear God." Carol threw her hands into the air, evidently at a loss for anything beyond religious exclamatives.  
"You know," Piper continued.  _In for a penny, in for a pound,_ she reasoned. "I find myself saying that phrase, too, a lot. But with a different inflection and," She paused, eyes closing as she exhaled forcefully. "...  _Breathier_."

Piper saw Alex out of the corner of her eye, smirking proudly, and Nicky released a guffaw of disbelief.

"Piper,  _please_. Have some decorum." Carol seemed annoyed now, but Piper was on a roll.

Alex's fingers ghost across the back of her neck;  _I'm here, I've got you_ , and the blonde opted to end the interaction before her mother could cause any further upset.

"It was nice to see you, Mom." Piper glanced up at her father in the doorway, silhouetted by the daylight streaming in through the open front door. "Dad."

Carol floundered, uncertain, but the crunch of Bill's shoes on the driveway gravel signalled his departure without farewell, and she knew she needed to follow suit.  
She gave Alex a backward glance and released a sigh dripping with disappointment.

Piper trailed after her, more in the vein of escorting them out rather than playing the part of the lost puppy, and she waved them goodbye from the front step.  
"I'll call you!" She said loudly to their retreating forms, catching her mother's final despairing look back to the house as her father started the engine.

* * *

Piper watched the vehicle slip away down the drive until it was out of sight, and for the first time in several minutes allowed the various consequences of her actions to creep in around the edges of her consciousness.

How bad could it be?

It wouldn't be her first self-imposed isolation.  
They hated Cal's wife and still made time to see him.  
Hopefully the same courtesy could be extended to their only daughter.  
But was it a courtesy at all if they disagreed with the very fundamentals of her relationship?

Piper sighed, leaning back into Alex's embrace as she felt the older woman's arms encircle her waist. She let her head fall back onto Alex's shoulder, tears rising in her eyes reluctantly, as though emoting was some sign of defeat.

"I'm proud of you."  
"They didn't even say goodbye."  
" _Upon this will I seal'd my hard consent: I do beseech you, give them leave to go_."  
"Hamlet, act one scene two. Sort of. You changed it." Piper sniffed, feeling very sorry for herself by this point.

She didn't deal well with confrontation, and although it had seemed like she had the upper hand, she hadn't intended to cause her parents to walk out so abruptly. It had flummoxed her, and her small amount of success now seemed like a very petty victory.

"Give them some space. They need time to get over this." Alex held her closer, and for a moment Piper feared that her flood barriers would break there and then on the doorstep, emotions overflowing.  
"How come you're so reasonable all of a sudden?"  
"I used to argue with my Mom all the time. But she was my best friend." Alex kissed Piper's temple pensively. "Your parents, in comparison… I don't know. But time won't hurt."

It was the first week of December, and the chill from outside crept in around Piper's feet, the cold stone of the porch eating through the thin soles of her shoes.  
She remembered suddenly that Alex was barefoot - and bare-legged - behind her, and shuffled them back into the house, closing the door firmly on the overcast sky hanging over their heads.

In that moment, the four walls around them didn't seem to keep the rainclouds out.

Nicky still loitered in the kitchen doorway, and somewhere between Alex taking Piper's hand and heading to make her own coffee, the brunette noticed what her housemate was wearing.  
"That's my shirt."  
Nicky rolled her eyes. "Prove it."  
"Okay. It doesn't fit you. Because it's my shirt."  
Piper rubbed at her eyes, already exhausted and done with the day before eleven in the morning, and eventually glanced at Nicky too. "And those are my shorts."  
"Oh, they're  _your_  shorts?" Nicky chuckled. "I gotta admit, that's a relief."

Any residual tension melted away, and Piper let herself relax. "I'll let you keep wearing the shorts if you make us all breakfast."  
Nicky liked the challenge and raised an eyebrow, arms crossing over her chest as she abandoned her coffee cup in the sink. "And if I don't?"  
Piper inclined her head in Alex's direction as she pulled her usual stool out from beneath the table, where her mother seemed to have tucked it for tidiness' sake. "My girlfriend will take them back by force."  
Alex held her hands up defensively. "I'm a lover, not a fighter."  
"Some girlfriend you got there." Nicky teased, but began to retrieve some ingredients from the fridge anyway. "At least  _I'm_  wearing shorts."  
Piper wriggled her hand out of Alex's grasp and prodded her girlfriend softly in the ribs. "Yeah Alex, have some  _decorum_."  
Alex rolled her eyes, but was glad they were able to joke about the recent turn of events, producing her own Carol Chapman quote in reply. "Dear God."

Piper laughed, eyes shining as she caught Alex's gaze across the kitchen table.  
" _Dear God_." She echoed, grinning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I didn't want to say this at the top because SPOILERS but I love hearing coming out stories, so PM me if you'd like to share yours. This one was nothing like my own, but I figured it was still a story worth telling.


	8. Burn Your Fire For No WItness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While this is still very much a Vauseman fic, parts of this chapter are a little more Nicky-centric than usual.
> 
> Also, I don't know if I was hungry when I wrote this chapter or what, but there's lots of food stuff going on in here.
> 
> This chapter and the next were both supposed to b posted before Christmas - like, Christmas Eve? - but then my fiancée fell ill and I had to reframe my priorities! I hope you all had a nice festive season, regardless of how you spent it. I also hope that you're safe and fed and warm, and that if you spent this period in a place that isn't always welcoming, I hope it was bearable.
> 
> Final note before we get stuck in: there's an author's note at the end because I got a bit stuck in several places when writing this chapter. It's largely inconsequential but it might be worth a read.

 

Piper spent much of Sunday wallowing, although she put a brave face on it whenever she was caught looking anything less than content.  
She hid herself behind books and unmarked work, too afraid to admit how she felt; everybody else in the house had already lost their parents, so why should she be upset that she'd fallen out with hers?  
(She understood, despite this blasé train of thought, that it was actually  _all relative_ , and in fact she was completely entitled to be at least a little sad. But this didn't make her feel any better.)

Every time she tried to concentrate on whatever she was studying, whether it was a student's work or a page in her book, yesterday's conversation rose up again like the sea in a storm.

" _Piper Elizabeth Chapman. Are you dating a woman?"  
_ " _Yes Mom." Piper straightened her spine. "Alex and I have been seeing each other for some time now."  
_ " _Oh Piper, for heaven's sake."  
_ " _Heaven doesn't have anything to do with this, Mom. I have a girlfriend that I love. So, there." She finished a little petulantly, taking a step away from her parents and moving a little closer to Alex.  
_ _Carol looked exasperated, and Bill fished their car keys out of his pocket to make clear his intention to leave.  
_ " _So, does that mean you're officially -"  
_ " _It means that I officially have a girlfriend."_

Alex could feel Piper's discomfort radiating away from her in waves, and gave her as much space as she could bear to, but kept circling back around.  
Each time she found some excuse to stand and wander aimlessly - "just stretching my legs" - or to head to the kitchen - "do you want a coffee? 'Cause  _I_ want a coffee." - she would offer the younger woman snacks, or drinks, or even one of those weird herbal teas Piper had filled the kitchen cupboards with.

Piper always declined politely, but after several hours had passed and Alex had offered her almost every possible edible option in the house, she knew she would have to humour her eventually.  
Besides, she conceded, she was getting  _a little_  hungry.

"What's for dinner?" She tried ask the question as casually as possible, but she couldn't ignore the way Alex's eyes lit up when she  _finally_ engaged with the line of questioning she'd been pursuing all day.  
"Well, I could make..."  
" _Chinese food_." Nicky appeared in the doorway. She'd been largely absent since breakfast, but had a knack for arriving whenever it was mealtime.  
Alex looked put-out. "I think maybe we should let Piper choose."  
Nicky shrugged and grinned. "Sure. You like Chinese food, Chapman?"  
"I do."  
"Great. Me too. Stretch, you love Chinese food. Don't pretend you don't. I'll pay."

The last of Nicky's sentence tapered off as she wandered away towards the kitchen.

Alex sat down gently on the arm of Piper's armchair - now rarely used by the others, as Piper had taken to it for reading when she first moved in - and placed a small kiss on Piper's forehead.

"How're you doing?"  
"I've been better."  
"Do you want to..." Alex cast around, unsure of what exactly would be helpful. She hadn't really faced anything like this before. "Call Cal?"  
Piper laughed, and for the first time that day it sounded a little genuine. "No, he's already got a shaky enough relationship with my parents. I'm not sure he needs me adding to that."

Piper closed her book and dropped it onto the floor to join the pile of marked papers from school.

"Besides, it's not like this isn't fixable." She sat up, gathering her resolve. "It's like, the sky is blue, right? But when there are clouds, you think it's gray. But, really, it's still blue. It hasn't changed. It's just  
covered with gray clouds passing by. And these clouds will pass by."  
"The clouds just need to get their heads out of their asses." Alex nodded, sagely. "And be less shitty to their kids."  
"I'm not even angry anymore. I'm just sad, and frustrated. I feel like used to have a temper, but now I have a passion for  _justice_."  
"Sure thing, Rosa Sparks." Alex rolled her eyes and gave Piper an affectionate nudge. "Now let's get some food. I hear fighting for justice works up an appetite."

* * *

The next morning, Nicky fidgeted in the car all the way to work, and Alex was inches away from confiscating the lighter she kept rolling and lighting to occupy herself.

"Seriously Nick, I don't think you have anything to worry about. She'd have done it on Friday if I was anything important."  
"Let's not underestimate the power of Natalie Figueroa, okay? She has  _always_  hated me."  
"Maybe so, but she can't just fire you. Right, Pipes?"  
Piper had been texting Polly since they'd left the house and therefore had no idea what they were talking about, but she nodded all the same. "Definitely."  
"You make a compelling case, Blondie." Nicky mumbled sarcastically, slumping back in her seat as they pulled into the staff car park.

It was 8am when they arrived, and the sun hadn't even risen across the asphalt yet.  
Nicky shoved her hands into her pockets - the only member of the group without a bag - and scuffed her feet against the grit as they made their way slowly over to the faculty building.

Natalie Figueroa met them in the foyer, head tilted and arms folded.

"Fig!" Nicky mimicked surprise, but Fig's only response was to raise an eyebrow. "I always miss you until you're here."  
"I'm sure you do. My office,  _now._ "  
"I was hoping we could grab some dinner first, I mean, I'm no lady but - "  
" _Now_ , Ms Nichols. I'm a busy woman and briefing is in half an hour. Unless you'd like the entire staff body to hear  _another_ of your private conversations?"  
"I can't deny, that's a point well made." Nicky shrugged and turned to follow, but not before miming cocking a pistol and firing it into the side of her own head.

Piper tangled her fingers in Alex's, watching her friend's retreating form.

"You think she'll get fired?"  
Alex tilted her head in Piper's direction. "No fucking idea. But whatever happens, Nicky'll figure it out. She's resourceful." She paused and kissed Piper on the forehead. "We should probably still tell Red, though."

* * *

"So here's the deal." Natalie Figueroa sat back in her seat, elbows on the armrest as she steepled her fingers beneath her chin. "I can't fire you. I  _can_  however give you a formal disciplinary. But one more fuck up and that's a final warning."  
Nicky nodded, treading carefully as her manager was clearly frustrated by the restrictions placed on her. "Uh huh. Yeah. And just so I'm clear, how long have you been looking for an excuse to do this?"  
Fig laughed then, happy to speak openly for once. "Since I hired you."  
"So why hire me? It's not like I'm a stellar teacher. I know my shit but I'm not exactly reliable. I hate the kids: they don't drink, they haven't travelled..."  
"It was your mother." Fig interrupted abruptly. "She had designs for your success. Designs which you resisted at every turn. So here we both are."

Natalie lifted her head and surveyed the younger woman across the table between them. There were some parts of Nicky that she saw in herself, and other parts that she wished she didn't have to see at all. But they could come to some arrangement, she was sure.

"Look Nicky, just get some fucking therapy, okay? I know you like to look like you're tough shit but your heart bleeds the way a vagina should, and it's leaking into my results."  
Nicky guffawed. "I appreciate your concern, but I'm actually well covered on the menstruation front."

The Principal sighed and leaned forward, palms flat on her desk.  
The room's lighting threw flat shadows across her face, and Nicky had flashbacks to every interrogation scene she'd ever seen.

"This isn't a contest Nicky. You do your best because that's what you're supposed to do." Fig threw her hands up in disbelief. "Why is it so hard for you people to understand? You're like babies!  _"Where's my reward?" "Pay attention to me!" "Give me praise!" "Buy more books!" "Build a gym!"_  I'm not your goddamn mommy. She's gone, so I need you to grow up."

Nicky was a little impressed by Fig's honesty, and tilted her chin in the woman's direction, newly appraising her.

Oblivious, Natalie rubbed her eyes, evidently tired. It wasn't even 9am and she'd already rather be back in her large four-poster bed.  
It was time to close the conversation.

"How about this? In acknowledgment of your hard work and success, I will not fire you today. In fact, providing you keep your head down, I won't even fire you before the end of the year. We'll reassess next fall. I need to not lose any staff members right now, and at least you and I can actually be honest with one another. Do we have a deal?"  
"Absolutely. Great talk."  
Nicky held out her hand for Fig to shake, but Natalie dismissed the gesture, leaning back in her chair once more. "One more thing."  
Nicky groaned inwardly, but put on a happy face. "Sure. Want me to submit lessons plans? Seating charts? Marking samples for moderation?"  
Natalie was fairly sure that all of those had already been requested, shaking her head swiftly to dispel any lingering - and accurate - doubts. "I need you to be visible and well-behaved at Friday's party. This institution is part of your mother's legacy, and that's not something I'm quiet about. So I need her  _daughter,_ " Fig laboured over the word like it was difficult for her to admit aloud. "To at least pretend to be happy. And sober."  
Nicky blanched a little and cleared her throat, keen for clarification. "To I actually have to _not drink_ , or do I just have to  _appear_  sober?"  
"Either or. Just don't fuck shit up any further Nicky, neither of us can afford it."  
"I get you." The teacher shifted in her seat, clearly eager to leave. "We done here?"  
"We're done here. I'll see you in -  _and not outside of_  - briefing in fifteen minutes."

Nicky gave a mock salute and strode swiftly to the door, glad to be gone.  
Her exit gave Natalie a chance to drop her officious facade for a second. It genuinely baffled her that the two women could have such similar upbringings and yet such opposing outlooks.  
No matter; Nicky was on her last legs now. If she continued to tow the line, she could stay. And if she broke the rules again? Then that was one less problem for Fig to puzzle over.

* * *

Nicky was so elated that she was almost late for briefing, having stopped on her way for a long, leisurely smoke at the edge of the grass track, sun climbing lazily over the trees lining the perimeter of the grounds.

She had to sneak into the back of the assembly hall, and consequently didn't manage to see Alex and Piper again until lunchtime, where she found them anxiously awaiting her arrival in the staff room.

"You're still here! Which is… good news?" Piper seemed uncertain, but any reply was interrupted by Red, who embraced Nicky the moment she approached.  
"Nicky. I thought you would be leaving."  
"Christ, you wanna see the back of me that badly?" Nicky joked, but she wrapped her arms around the surrogate matriarch regardless.

There was a disturbance at the sink behind their table as somebody dropped something heavy.  
The item wasn't broken, but certainly cracked, and the group turned to see the source of the sound.

Morello stood over the sink, knuckles white.  
She held a sponge covered in bubbles in her left hand, and a chipped, red mug in her right. Hot water pounded from the tap, making the tips of her fingers a bright, blushing pink.  
Realising that she'd caught their attention, she nodded at her colleagues, smiling beautifically. "Oh. Hello. Everyone."

Her eyes landed on Nicky, and she abruptly shut off the tap, discarding the cup on the drying rack and dripping soap suds onto the floor as she moved away from the counter.  
She took a deep breath in, hiccuping a little, and Nicky wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around the diminutive woman.

"Excuse me. People to see, places to be."   
The brunette dipped her head and departed, still trailing bubbles behind her like bread-crumbs on the carpet as she disappeared into the thrumming student body outside.

Nicky's mouth opened and then closed, foot tapping on the floor as she fought the urge to pursue.  
A firm hand on her arm stilled her motion, and she glanced up to find Red's piercing gaze.

"Let her go."

Nicky relented with a sigh, casting her eyes over the table laden with people's lunches.  
Alex had brought the remains of last night's takeaway for them to share, and she grabbed a fork and the leftover chow mein begrudgingly.  
She would fix things with Morello, but she had to fix her hunger first.

* * *

Lunchtime reached its end as it always did: too soon.

Piper tugged on Alex's sleeve as they returned to their classrooms, a gesture  _only just_  innocuous enough to not attract unwanted gossip from their already nosy students.

"I told Polly about what happened yesterday, and she's asked if I want to have tea with her."  
"Why are you telling me?" Alex's lips quirked up at the corners, the statement having tickled her.  
"Is that okay?"  
"I'm not your keeper, kid." Alex's mirth had reached the corners of her eyes now, in a grin that only Piper ever got to see. "Go see your friend."  
"She hasn't seen the house yet, and it's a school night, so I didn't want to be out." Piper considered waiting for Alex to join the dots, but decided to bridge the gap for her instead. "I invited her over."

Alex looked up at the ceiling tiles for a moment, doing her best to form a response that both validated Piper's need to see Polly and yet discouraged her from doing so in Alex's presence.

Down the corridor, the bell rang for lessons to start, and the formerly packed hallway began to clear as students filtered off into their respective rooms.

"I'll make us something to eat. You guys can hang out in the library, or wherever it is that WASPs like to be." The taller woman said eventually, her tired smile leaving Piper relieved and giving her the reprieve she needed.  
"There's no nest in the house." Piper joked gently, grateful at Alex's obsequence. "And I can cook, it's fine." Piper glanced around the now-empty space and chanced a squeeze of Alex's hand as she headed off for her lesson.  
"No, you can spend time with  _your friend_!" Alex called after her, perhaps a little desperately. Her shoulders slumped in defeat as Piper's classroom door closed behind her. "Please don't make me sit with her."

* * *

The journey home was reasonable, with only a little squabbling over the stereo, Nicky batting Alex's insistent hand away from the CD slot as she drove them back to their house.

Despite being forewarned that Polly would be visiting, Nicky made her intentions for time spent before dinner very clear: she would be in her bedroom with several old copies of Penthouse, and didn't want to be disturbed. She had tension to relieve, and in her own words, "unless you're joining in, I'd rather you opted out. I've got enough on my hands with the Christmas party already."

Although they hadn't seen her between lunch and last bell, it seemed that her brief interactions with both Fig and Morello had left her feeling more than a little stressed. Nicky was also a conscientious objector to enforced fun, and although she'd been quiet about the school's annual staff celebration, it was only a few days away, and therefore proving difficult to ignore.

Alex and Piper were hesitant to follow her upstairs after they'd opened the front door, as while they wanted to change out of their work clothes, overhearing their friend's  _private time_  wasn't high on their list of things to do.  
Piper instead rummaged through the fridge to determine what she could make for dinner, and Alex took long, slow sips from a green tea Piper had convinced her would be a healthy exchange for one of her many coffees each day.

Polly wasn't due for at least another hour, so they had a little time to bask in one another's company.

They sat at the table and took it in turns to share anecdotes about their respective lessons - including a story from Alex about how one of her student had misheard "Othello" for "A Fellow" and consequently started a heated argument with a classmate - until they had only twenty minutes left before their guest's ETA.

Polly had sent a text to say she was stopping off at a supermarket to get some wine before coming over, and Piper glanced up from her phone to the kitchen clock on the wall.  
"We're going to have to bite the bullet, aren't we?" She asked Alex, reluctantly. "I really need to get changed out of these clothes."  
Alex nodded, mock-solemnly. "Welcome to the joys of a shared house."  
She reached out her hand to Piper, and they approached the foot of the stairs together. "I've shared houses before, but I don't think I've  _overheard_ anyone since college."  
"Well, Nicky's pretty loud, so I don't think you'll have many options to avoid it."  
"You've  _heard_  her?" Piper looked scandalised.

While Alex had assumed that her past dalliances with Nicky were fairly common knowledge, she opted to save that particular conversation for later.   
"Let's just get changed and get out." She winked.

* * *

Nicky wasn't in the business of keeping her sex life to herself, Piper knew, but she hadn't expected that she would be quite as vocal as she was, despite Alex's prior warning. She blushed a deep pink as she heard her housemate curse loudly across the corridor, and Alex smothered a guffaw behind her, closing their bedroom door to best muffle the noise.

It didn't work.

" _Oh my god_." Piper whispered. She started to undress in a hurry, desperate to be done with the whole experience.  
Alex was still smirking, down to her underwear already, and approached Piper with laughter in her eyes. "Is this a little too R-rated for you?"  
"Alex, we can literally hear our friend masturbating!"

Piper's brain seemed stuck on the fact.  
Alex decided to help her unhook it.

"What about now?" Alex stepped closer, nudging Piper backwards against the dresser and kissing her softly.  
"That doesn't help - " Piper tried to argue her case, but leant into Alex's next kiss all the same.

She cupped Alex's curves with her hands, cradling the soft arc of her waist and running her thumbs over the bones above it. She tugged her girlfriend closer, Alex's teeth finding her bottom lip and tugging in return.

"Al, Polly will be here..."  
"Soon, yeah, I know." Alex's breath was warm again Piper's mouth, tongue touching the tip of her index finger as it descended towards the waistband of Piper's black underwear.

Across the hall from them, another loud moan sounded. Piper giggled, breath hitching as Alex's fingers caught her clit.

"Fuck..." She hissed, hips bucking towards the brunette.

Piper curled her fingers into Alex's body, just hard enough that Alex knew to look for bruises in the new morning's light, making her huff out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.  
When she glanced up from Piper's hands, she found the blonde grinning, chest heaving as Alex continued to fuck her.

Piper was weak at the knees, mumbling incoherently a pile of phonemes through her smirking mouth, which sounded a great deal like swear words that could make a sailor blush.  
She could feel her skin flushing, the dark ink climbing Alex's forearm a stark contrast to her own pale flesh.  
Her pulse pounded in her ears, and Alex pressed against her, the heat climbing between them.

Piper's mouth was dry and she cried out as she crept closer to the crest of the wave. She could hear Alex's voice nearby, urging her on, teeth tugging against the soft curve of her jaw.

"Come on babe,  _come for me_..."

Alex's tongue slipped between Piper's teeth, mouth hot and wanting, and Piper could feel herself on the edge of the precipice,  _so goddamn close_ …

And Alex pulled away, laughing.

"Alex, what the f-"  
"Polly's here." The brunette grinned, the doorbell chiming downstairs.  
"But still!" Piper pouted, grumpily brushing away the kiss that Alex planted on her cheek.  
"I heard car tyres on the driveway. Sorry kid. Looks like this'll have to wait until later." Alex winked.  
"We had time." Piper whined to herself, scrambling to gather her clothes together.

She tugged on jeans and a t-shirt as the doorbell rang for a second time, and tried to ignore Alex's smirking shadow descending the stairs behind her.

Blushing and breathless, Piper pulled open the front door as Alex escaped, laughing, into the library.

"Everything okay?" Polly seemed uncertain as she stepped inside, but Piper waved her off, holding an arm out for a hug.  
Through gritted teeth and crossed legs, Piper smiled vacantly. "Oh yes. Everything's  _great_."

* * *

In the end, Alex didn't have to entertain Polly at all. She provided the evening's music from the library, jumping from track to track across an array of vinyls.  
Occasionally she'd hear laughter filter through from the kitchen across the hallway, and it made her happy that Piper was happy.

For Piper and her friend, it was as though nothing had changed.  
Sure, they were cooking in a different room this time, but their haphazard approach to creating a meal together was much the same as it had always been.

"Can you pass the lentils?" Polly gestured towards the stack of ingredients sitting on the counter next to Piper.  
"Where are they going?" Piper queried, handing them over.  
"In with the chickpeas. I thought you said you'd made this before?"

Piper shrugged and smiled. Polly knew that face well.

"You haven't made this before, have you?"  
"Technically,  _no_. But I have read the recipe online a whole bunch of times!"  
"Sometimes, just  _sometimes_ , I'm glad you moved out."

Piper laughed, full of mock outrage.  
It was reassuring to feel the same familiarity she had missed from living with Polly.   
There had been something so effortless about the predictability of their arrangement.  
No bone in her body regretted moving in with Alex, but there was a distinctly different dynamic to her new home.  
Sometimes the ease of having Polly as a roommate - albeit a fussy and sometimes downright infuriating roommate - had been so comfortable.

"How're things with Larry?"  _She could tease too.  
_ "Let's see," Polly rested the wooden spoon she'd been stirring dinner with against the edge of the pan, ignoring the sauce that dripped down the handle onto the worktop. "It's been seventy two hours since I last saw him, give or take, so we've had  _just_ enough time to get married and pop out a bunch of kids."  
Piper narrowed her eyes. " _Ha ha._ I meant, are you going to see him again?"  
Polly gathered the spoon up again and returning to stirring, studiously ignoring Piper's gaze. "Well, since you asked, yes. We're going for dinner on Wednesday."  
"Like a  _date_?"  
Polly nodded, only semi-seriously. "Like a date."

Piper's face lit up. As discomforting as she found the concept, if it made Polly happy to date Larry, she could get on board with it.

"Hey Alex," Piper called over her shoulder, still grinning at her best friend. "Polly and Larry are  _dating_!"  
"Gross." Came the reply from the library. There was a pause - just enough time for Polly to pull an unimpressed face at Piper - but then, drifting across the hallway, "I mean, great. Good for them."

"Really?" Polly lowered her voice, tone dripping with sarcasm. "You don't think she could've sounded a little  _less_  interested?"  
"She's trying." Piper was ready to form a firm defence in her girlfriend's favour, but Alex herself appeared in the kitchen doorway.  
"Wine?"  
"Polly brought some. It's just breathing." Piper gestured to an open bottle of cabernet sauvignon on the counter, which had three empty wine glasses next to it.

Alex wasn't sure which of the women had known it needed to aerate - she'd only learnt about tannins from her years in the cartel - but she acknowledged Polly's steady gaze with a nod.

"Want a glass?"  
"Sure."   
Piper's friend turned back towards the pan on the hob, but Piper herself stepped away. "Dinner's ready. I'll go tell Nicky."  
Alex set down the wine glass she'd just filled for herself with a hurried thunk. "I'll tell her."  
"No, it's fine. Set the table for me babe?"

And with that, Piper was gone. Alex held her sigh inside, and busied herself pouring Polly's drink.

"So." She started, unsure of where her statement was going to end up. "Got another date with Larry, huh?"  
Polly stepped forward to receive the glass that Alex slid in her direction. "Yes, we're seeing each other."

Alex nodded, and began to rummage around in her bag of conversational niceness for a relatively polite rejoinder, but Polly cleared her throat instead.

"I know," Polly paused and took a mouthful of wine. " _You_  know, that I don't necessarily agree with this." She gestured vaguely around the kitchen, somehow indicating Alex and Piper's relationship.   
Alex nodded her understanding, but said nothing.  
"And although Piper hasn't told me anywhere near enough about you, you seem to make her happy. Which is all I really care about." Polly seemed to gain momentum as she continued. "And if you've given her a reason to cut her parental apron strings a little, I'm glad. The Chapman family has always been a little insular for my liking."  
Alex let loose a low chuckle, earning her a small smile from Polly.  
"But Piper is still my oldest,  _and closest_ , friend. And I may not like you, or this relationship, but I'm willing to give it a go if you're serious about her."  
"We've moved in together." Alex murmured, eyes affixed on Polly over her wine glass. "I'm pretty serious."  
Polly studied her. "Have you told her you love her yet? Because you clearly do."

This was something Alex hadn't anticipated. She definitely loved Piper, wholeheartedly, but neither one of them had been brave enough to say it yet.  
Alex had been afraid that it wasn't reciprocated - that was the reason for her hesitation.  
What if Piper hadn't said  _those three words_  because she didn't feel them?  
She was beginning a slow, unexpected spiral downward, and took a drink of wine to steady herself, fingertips of her free hand pressing into the cold wooden worktop.

"Not yet. But..."

Alex broke off awkwardly as Piper came through the doorway, beaming. "You're actually talking to one another!"  
Polly took a step towards Alex, wearing an expression which Alex couldn't quite read. Disregarding Piper's interruption, she inclined her head.

" _You should_." Was all she said.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's notes:
> 
> a) My friend baileytron had to help me with the sex scene here because I'd redrafted it six times and it still wasn't quite right. So thanks pal.
> 
> b) I know that canonically, Polly and Alex really strongly dislike one another. But Polly's reasons for disliking Alex in the show (Alex naming Piper at her trial, Alex encouraging Piper to help with cartel business, etc.) doesn't exist in this AU, and so it would be illogical for that strong dislike to still be present. I firmly believe she would want Piper to be happy, and if Alex seems like the most viable route to that happiness, then so be it. Don't get me wrong, Alex and Polly still don't like each other here (for reasons explored in the prequel to this story), but I just wanted to explain the conundrum I had when writing the last section of this chapter in case Polly seemed a little OOC.
> 
> c) I only just realised that I forgot to write the cliched "I love you" scene that turns up in every new couple fic. So I guess that's coming.


	9. Chaleur Humaine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the longest chapter I've ever written. Ever. Across all of my fics. It feels like a behemoth, even though it's not really.
> 
> Obviously each of these chapters is named after an album (as many of you have pointed out to me on tumblr, with some of you even spotting the connections between the albums), and I picked Chaleur Humaine for this chapter because I feel like it fits perfect with the content. Each title is always selected for similarities between the album and the chapter, but this felt like the best fit so far.  
> (Also, high five if you can spot the song lyrics in here - there are references to a whole bunch of things.)
> 
> Final note: as it's Christmas - both irl and in the narrative! - I hope everyone's okay. I've had Christmases where nobody could afford gifts (apart from the gift of not being kicked out of our apartment) and I've had Christmases when I managed get everybody something, so I just wanted to say that I hope you all managed to have a great festive season, regardless of what you celebrate or who you live with.
> 
> (Replies to recent reviews at the end of the next chapter.)

 

Piper stood in front of the mirror, tugging at the hem of her dress for what seemed like the  _millionth_  time.

"Are you sure this looks okay? It's my first party."  
Alex emerged from the corridor outside their room, toothbrush in hand. "Your first Christmas party?"  
"My first Christmas party  _here_ , at the school." The blonde corrected, tilting her head as though t was the angle of her view that wasn't right, rather than the outfit.  
"I think you look hot." Nicky interjected from the door. At Alex's warning glance, Nicky shrugged. "What? It's not personal, it's chemical."  
"Thank you Nicky." Piper said graciously, as she watched their interaction in the mirror's reflection. "That was  _actually_ the reply I was hoping for."  
"Oh, so now  _I'm_ the bad guy?" Alex sidled up beside her, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of her jaw as she surveyed her girlfriend in the mirror.  
"You're in luck," Piper whispered, eyes affixed on the way Alex's gaze roamed her body. "I like the bad guys."  
"GROSS." Nicky's objection from the doorway was loud, her impatience clear.

Her housemates laughed and broke apart. It was time to leave.

Grabbing coats from the foyer - and Alex taking another moment to reassure Piper that her outfit was  _perfect_  - the three women opened their front door to the icy winter's air.  
Their taxi crunched into the gravel driveway almost on cue, and the women begrudgingly clambered inside.

Belted in, Nicky slipped a hip-flask from her jacket pocket. "One for the road?"

Alex accepted it gratefully. She didn't enjoy these events any more than Nicky did, but at least she had someone she loved this time that she could share it with.

 _Love_.

There was that word again.

Alex rolled her shoulders - conveying an inexplicable exterior nonchalance to combat her interior concern - and took a gulp of whatever liquor Nicky had smuggled.

 _Love_.

She really should do something about that.

* * *

Fig had rented the top floor of a bar for the evening, after the previous year's failed attempts to "class things up" in an uptown restaurant.  
(Fig had taken the hint to change venues after Taystee had loudly asked a waiter what the purpose of "all this freakin' cutlery is" while brandishing a dessert fork. The Music teacher seemed far happier in her current surroundings, gently hustling Jones and Watson from the gym department at pool.)

The Principal herself had only shown up for appearance's sake, intending to leave after at most an hour, but had instead found herself hemmed in by some of the older members of staff, with Red and Mendoza from Home Economics propping up one side of the bar beside her, and Bursett bickering with a bartender on the other.

"Can I get you a drink, Natalie?" The Hair and Beauty teacher asked smoothly, despite the use of Fig's first name making the headteacher grimace inwardly.  
"No, thank you, Miss Burset. I'll be going soon."  
"Are you sure? I just haggled some top-shelf prosecco for myself - the least I can do is the same for you."

In the silence that followed, Sophia turned away from Fig, and the two women stood with their backs against the serving bench, statuesque and still.

Natalie was quite happy to remain that way for several minutes, until -  _of course_  - Nicole Nichols walked in.

Fig gathered up her coat from the bench beside her and murmured her goodbyes. Sophia was more than happy to see her leave, and promptly charged the rest of the bottle she'd started to the tab her boss had set up for the evening.

 _She should've taken the drink_ , Sophia acknowledged merrily, stopping to greet Piper with a smile and a kiss on the cheek as she passed the newcomers.

"You know Burset?" Alex enquired, taking Piper's coat to hang on a peg by the door.  
"I know everyone." Piper replied absently, eyes scanning the room.

Alex followed her line of visual enquiry until her girlfriend's gaze settled on the elevated DJ booth in the corner:  _Stella_.  
The music teacher seemed to be in a world of her own, too preoccupied by the Macbook and decks in front of her to acknowledge any of the partygoers.  
Alex was quietly glad. She was hoping to escape unscathed.

"I made a point of meeting everyone I'd be working with in the first week at work." Piper seemed to be talking straight through their acknowledgement that Stella was here, so Alex decided to join her. "I counted how many staff were listed in my induction booklet, and divided that total between the number of days we had before the students arrived. I introduced myself to around six new people each day."  
Piper sounded proud, and Alex couldn't help but tease the nerd her girlfriend always tried- and failed - to hide.  
"Your Maths was off - I don't remember you coming to talk to me." She mock-objected.  
"I didn't need to." Piper glanced over her shoulder with a smirk. "I got you to come to  _me._ "

Alex wasn't even going to try to conceal the smile that Piper brought out of her. She reached out, lacing her fingers through Piper's in a gesture which was absolutely  _not_  supposed to be territorial.

They greeted Red and Gloria amiably over drink, Nicky bringing up the rear as she glanced around for Lorna.

"Uh… Anyone seen Driver's Ed?"  
"Who, Morello?" Gloria drained her glass and passed it back to the bartender, who refilled it without so much as a word. "She's here somewhere."  
"I could do with catching up with her. On a strictly professional basis, of course." Nicky didn't even bother to make eye contact as she fibbed, still looking around.  
"And if she doesn't want to see you, this fish that got away?" Red inquired, eyebrow raised over her half empty glass.  
"It's ' _one_ that got away' _,_  not  _fish_. And if she doesn't want to talk, then..." Nicky finally engaged with the group, gesturing absently at the air around her. "Then at least I tried."

She gathered up a glass of whisky from the counter - which nobody had seen her order - and sent a cheers into the air between them, before turning on her heel and disappearing into the throng of partiers.

Red elbowed Piper softly. "It is an idiom about fish though, I am right in thinking?"

* * *

Nicky had made small talk with everyone she could find, and still hadn't managed to locate Lorna.  
She'd even raced Boo to the bottom of a beer for information, and despite feeling considerably passed the point of stopping which she'd promised Fig earlier that week, she was no closer to knowing where the woman was.

Now several drinks down, the bathroom was beckoning. She followed the signs and burst unceremoniously through a small black door in the back corner of the hired room, bumping straight into Morello herself.

"Oh!"  
"Oh, hey." Nicky countered, cautiously.  
"You're here." Lorna brushed off her dress as though dusting herself down after a fall, a gesture Nicky unconsciously mirrored.  
"Yeah. Was hoping to talk to you actually."  
"You were?" Morello seemed oddly surprised, and Nicky once again found herself charmed by the younger woman's consistently unconventional responses.

 _Of course_  Nicky wanted to speak to her: their last meeting had been unsettling, and their encounter prior to that had been downright unpleasant. Nicky just wanted to know if they could resolve things.

"I just," Nicky began, brimming with hesitation, before her bladder reminded her that she's been brimming with something else first. "Wait here. Please?"

She began to back away, hands outstretched to encourage Lorna to wait where she was.  
Somehow, it worked.

Nicky was astonished when she emerged from the cubicle, to find Morello leaning politely against the sinks.

"You stayed." She remarked quietly, sliding her hands into her pockets to stop herself from fidgeting.  
"You gonna wash your hands?" Morello asked.

Nicky didn't reply, but did as suggested.  
The driver's ed instructor edged a little closer as Nicky towelled her hands dry, moving from two sinks away to one, and then eventually to the sink adjacent to the one Nicky was using.

"What did you want to talk about?"

Nicky tossed her paper towel into the bin and turned to face Lorna, as little surprised when she found herself far closer to the woman than she'd expect to be.

"I missed you." She blurted out.  
"Aw, that's sweet." Lorna's eyes twinkled as she smoothed her dress again in an evidently nervous gesture. "S'that all?"  
"Depends - how long have we got?"  
Morello made a show of checking an invisible watch. "You get five minutes."

Nicky sighed and looked squarely into the other woman's eyes. "Do you want this?" She gestured between the two of them in the limited space that Morello had left. "Any of it?"  
"Well," the brunette paused, as though weighing her options. "I don't really know what you mean." She relented.  
"I thought," Nicky slowed down, as though speaking to someone who needed a little extra help to keep track of the conversation. "That you  _liked_  me. We messaged all through the summer. And then you spent the night, and you seemed to freak out, but then you kept flirting with me, and then last week - "  
"I don't know what you want from me." Morello interrupted, so quietly that Nicky thought she'd imagined it. "I'm not like you."  
"You don't like me?" Nicky repeated what she thought she'd heard, a little louder than she'd intended to. "I guess that settles that. Thanks for not mincing your words."

Nicky checked her teeth in the mirror, ready to leave, before Lorna placed a soft hand on her arm, stilling her.   
"That's not what I said. I..." Nicky's expression told Lorna that she had around five seconds to explain herself, and her following gulp was audible. "I  _do_  like you, but I'm not  _like_  you."

Nicky seemed at a loss, mouth open to speak, but no words came out.

"I'm not… I don't like women, like you. Not that I don't like  _you_. I just don't like..."  
"Pussy?"  
"Nicky, gross." Morello seemed offended even by the word itself.  
"But that's what you're saying? You're not a dyke? A rug muncher?"  
"You don't have to be so blunt about it."  
"And  _you_  don't have to be gay to like me."

There was a pause as the conversation seemed to reach a temporary stalemate.

"Well, I'm not a Betty-both-ways, if that's what you're implying."  
Nicky withheld a guffaw. "Nobody's implying anything, Lorna. I just… I like you, too. And I'd like to spend more time with you." Nicky raised her hands in a symbol of surrender. "And I don't even need to touch your  _down there_  if you don't want me to."

Morello seemed to smother a self-conscious laugh, and Nicky softened ever further.

"Can I take you out for dinner?"  
"No funny business." Lorna cautioned, eyes becoming hard again at the prospect of labelling whatever was going on between them.  
"Scout's honour." Nicky gave a poor imitation of a salute. Morello laughed, and Nicky grinned. Despite everything, she was still  _so soft_  on this girl. But then, that's why why they were stood here."What?"

"I never did do it with a Scout before." Morello replied, coyly.

Nicky's mind raced - she could barely keep track of Morello on a good day, and now, with every sentiment that slipped passed their lips so soaked in alcohol that she feared their whole interaction might self-immolate at any second, she had to pause. Was Lorna implying that she wanted them to be intimate after all?

"I thought you  _didn't_ want to do it with me."  
"I don't want to do a lot of things until I do." Lorna shrugged as though this was an everyday conversation, and Nicky couldn't help but wonder whether it was the liquor or Christmas that had suddenly made her more candid. In her intoxicated imaginings, neither made more sense.

"Look," Nicky ventured, "you're a beautiful, sweet girl. And I really do not want to fuck this up anymore than I already have done."  
"Aw," Lorna tilted her head to one side, like a puppy trying to listen. "Nick, that's nice."  
"So, hear me out. How about - and I recognise that this is out of character for me, but - how about no sex? At least until after the first date."  
The smaller woman took a step forward, and planted a soft kiss on Nicky's cheek. "Okay. But I'm gonna need a second date too, and probably a third, because I got a long list of restaurants I want to try and not enough money to pay for 'em myself."  
"I'll happily fund your food if it means I can be there to watch you eat it."  
"That's a weird thing to say. Didn't that sound weird in your head?"  
Nicky thought for a moment, before nodding. "It did, but I was hoping it might also sound kinda nice too."  
"I don't know. I thought when I got asked out for the first time, it would be all like, Tony and Maria."  
"Who?"  
"Y'know, West Side Story!"  
"Oh. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint, but I wasn't exactly planning for this to end in a double suicide."  
"That's not very classy."  
"Neither is being asked out in a bathroom." Nicky extended a hand to Lorna, and prayed to high hell that the offer would be accepted. "Wanna blow this joint?"

With a brief glance into Nicky's brown eyes, Lorna reached out, her smooth fingers sliding against Nicky's callused palm.

"Take me somewhere."  
"Where?" Fingers intertwined with Lorna's, Nicky began to pull her arm back - a fisherman reeling in a prized catch - until they were chest to chest, her gaze searching the brunette's own for any sign of reluctance, although there was none to be found.  
Lorna smiled and Nicky felt the dark room light up around them. "Anywhere but here."

* * *

Nicky had disappeared long ago - having first disappeared into the crowds of tired teachers, before then re-emerging to bid them goodnight, with Morello on her arm and some half-cooked plan about visiting multiple restaurants - and Piper was growing restless.

They'd been at the party for almost two hours, but it really wasn't her sort of scene. She'd much rather a few drinks in a bar with a few close friends and some food, than a large event with some relative strangers for small talk.  
She turned to Alex and was about to flutter her eyelashes, her request to leave early for "festive fumblings" - the fricative prepared especially to appeal to Alex's fondness for alliteration - when her mobile started to buzz in her clutch bag.

Alex turned away from the conversation she'd been resignedly participating in - Yoga Jones and Janae Watson debating the physical and spiritual merits of yoga versus athletics - to pull a questioning expression in her girlfriend's direction.

Piper fumbled with the clasp until she reached the device, and was eve more perplexed when she found that it was Polly calling. She leaned forward in her seat to kiss Alex's cheek, then headed for the stairs down to the lower floor, the only area not crammed with partygoers.

"Pol?"  
"Piper!" Polly sounded altogether too elated, and most likely a little drunk.  
"Are you okay? Where are you?"  
"We're here!"  
"Where?" Piper was bemused.  
"In the bar, duh." Piper glanced around the space, but couldn't see her best friend anywhere.  
"Which bar?"  
"Same as you, dummy." Polly's voice dropped into a sotto voce stage whisper. "Larry and I came for drinks after our date!"  
Piper wasn't sure where the conversation was leading, but was almost certain that Polly had gotten her times and places confused. They definitely weren't in the same place. "Well, I hope you have a lovely evening together."  
"Aww." Polly sounded genuinely disappointed. "You're not gonna come down and say hi?"  
 _Oh_. Piper kicked herself. She had forgotten they were on the second floor of a busy establishment. "How did you find us?"  
"Well, Larry recommended this place, and then when we got here, what were the chances, there was a sign saying that there was an  _invitation only_  event upstairs, so he asked the bartender what it was, and  _whatwouldyouknow_ , it's your Christmas party!"

Piper bristled internally. She had no idea how Larry could've tracked them down, but she was almost certain that this was not a chance encounter.

"So are you coming or not?" Polly asked again, and Piper sighed.  
"Yeah. Let me just get Alex."  
"Yes!" Polly sounded practically jubilant, confirming Piper's earlier suspicions that her friend was  _definitely_  intoxicated. "Bring Alex!"  
"Okay, hang on. See you soon."

Piper hung up, and took a deep breath.  
Was this a good idea, putting them all together?  
Her best friend, her girlfriend, her ex-boyfriend, and her.  
This would be fine.  
 _Totally_ fine.

She moved back to the group she'd left, sidling up to Alex and giving her shoulder a squeeze.

"Hey kid. Everything okay?" Sometimes Alex's voice was so low that Piper could lose it in the din, but this time she heard every word.  
"Yeah. You ready to go?"  
"Oh, so soon?" Piper did a double take before noticing that Alex was being sarcastic. "Yes, I've been waiting for you to ask for at least an hour. Let's go."

Alex rose to her feet and shouldered her jacket on, but Piper stopped their progress at the top of the stairs.

"There's a… catch. Just a small one." She watched as Alex ruminated on the worst case scenarios before nodding begrudgingly.  
"Go on."  
"Polly's downstairs. She wants a drink."  
Alex bypassed the logic of Polly's guest starring role in their evening in favour of cutting to the chase. "One drink, then home."  
"She's not alone."  
"Why, who's..?" Alex made a false start, before realisation dawned on her. "No, wait. Really?"  
The way her eyes glimmered made Piper nervous, and she gently took hold of the lapel of Alex's leather jacket as if trying to halt her enthusiasm. "I'm sure we can be reasonable. It might not even be terrible!"

But Alex's expression remained the same - a dangerous cocktail of mischief with a shot of insurrection - and she placed her hand on top of Piper's softly. "Are you saying I can't be  _reasonable_?"

She was smirking, and Piper was already regretting this decision, but they descended the stairs, hand-in-hand, anyway.

* * *

Watching Larry and Alex meet one another for the first time was like watching two unfamiliar dogs circle when their owners crossed paths in a busy park.

Alex was doing her best to not seem territorial, but Piper read her like a book: her palm in the small of Piper's back, the way Alex leant out to shake his hand too firmly, her knuckles paling against his warm, pink grip.

Polly made excited smalltalk about their evening prior to this point, and Piper politely back-channeled until her friend had finished regaling them, her anecdote reaching its natural conclusion as it came to the phone call they'd shared.

"So," Polly paused, beaming. "Drink?"

Alex seemed to deflate with relief at the offer of more alcohol, and she made an affirmative noise in Piper's ear.

"Babe?" Polly turned to Larry, who pulled her closer, his arms around her waist. She let loose a surprised squeak, unfortunately sharing with the group that this was an unexpected and unusual gesture on his part.  
"Yeah, you know what I like." Larry replied, at which Piper wanted to run and never look back.

Had he been like this when they'd dated, or was this level of repugnance exclusive to he and Polly?

Piper turned to Alex, who eyed the straight couple next to them with an amusing level of sheer distaste. "What would you like?"  
"I'd like to not be left alone with him." Alex answered quickly, straight-faced.  
"I meant to drink." Piper corrected. "I'll only be gone a sec, I promise."

Alex reluctantly eyed the bar over her girlfriend's shoulder, and Piper was probably close enough in her estimate. There was no queue and only a few patrons waiting for drinks.

"Rum and coke?" Alex asked, before lowering her voice and leaning into Piper. "And  _please_  be quick. 'Cause if I punch him, please know that he left me no choice."

Piper smothered a laugh and joined Polly as she made her way to the bar.

That left Alex and Larry alone at the small, circular table that he and Polly had commandeered.  
Larry seemed to be bubbling at the brim, a pot of boiling water almost overflowing, and Alex studiously averted her gaze, unwilling to give him any additional air time.

"Alex." He broke the ice, tone assertive.  
"Yeah?" She turned to him, trying to hide her dislike for the stranger.  
"You're tall." Larry stated, jaw set. He wasn't even bothering to look at her.  
Alex took glance in Piper's direction, nodding slowly. "I've been told."  
Larry exhaled forcefully through his nose. "When I found out Piper was dating a woman, I had so many things planned to say to you so tonight wouldn't be awkward, but now I- I'm just picturing you…"  
Alex ran her tongue across her lower lip, eyebrow raised. This was an interesting - and  _definitely_  unexpected- turn of events. "Got you all flustered?"  
"You got me pissed off." The sinking ship that had been Larry seemed to right itself suddenly, self-righteously, and he turned to her, all nervous eyes and false bravado. "Piper doesn't like women, you know. She likes  _men_."  
"Men, huh?" Alex looked him up and down doubtfully, and shrugged. "She seems to like me well enough."  
"It won't last. I know Piper better than you do." If he were a bird, he would've fluffed his feathers. A sense of misplaced self-importance radiated away from him in waves. "She's flighty and indecisive. She'll figure it out."  
"Figure what out? That I make her happy?" Alex's tone was incredulous but her face remained impassive. "So why are you here? To pick up the pieces when it all falls apart?"  
"I wanted to meet you."

There was a pause as Larry seemed to revel in his minuscule victory of getting under her skin. Alex sighed, and adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose in a librarian-like gesture that she recognised - and hoped - could be seen as condescending.  
After a few seconds of holding him in her gaze, she leant forward, gesturing for him to lean in too. 

"Look, Larry, my heart is with you. She's hot. She's read everything. We both know what she's like in bed. But she's dating me now. You don't get to call a girl  _flighty_ and  _indecisive_ and then also expect to get the Hollywood ending. You need to move on man, and be less of a dick."

There was the clearing of a throat as Larry and Alex turned to face their respective girlfriends, who had been standing at the table for several seconds, it seemed, by the expression on their faces.

"Card machine is down." Polly stated, looking from one to the other.  
"And we don't have any cash." Piper finished, eyebrow raised at Alex, who resented the implication that she was solely responsible for the standoff she'd been found in.  
"Well," Larry began, straightening up from his frustrated hunch. "I think we should probably take that as a sign and call this a night."  
"Mm." Answered Polly, who was still eyeing the pair a little warily. "I'll call a cab."

She stepped away from the table, phone in hand.  
Larry pulled together a weak smile for Piper's sake, but Alex didn't see the need to deceive anyone.

"How much of that did you hear?"  
"Enough." Piper murmured, before turning to Larry. " _Flighty and indecisive_? Really?"  
"Piper, I just meant - "  
There was a discomforting pause, in which Larry went from tragic underdog to distasteful antagonist. "The drama finds you, like it always does, because you need it. Don't come crying to me when this all goes to shit, Piper."  
Piper seemed unphased. "Hey Larry, when was the last time you got to cum in a real live vagina instead of your hand?"

Alex was both proud and impressed. If this had been some seventies show, the whole bar would have gone quiet and somebody would've dropped a glass.  
Instead, Larry's jaw dropped open.

Polly rejoined the conversation at almost exactly the wrong time; her only indication that the night was over was Piper putting on the jacket she'd been carrying, and thrusting her phone into Alex's grasp.

"Call us a taxi?"  
"Yes ma'am." Alex's tongue was planted firmly in her cheek, and she reached out her hand to shake Larry's. "Nice to meet you, asshole."  
"Polly, I'm so sorry, but we're going home. I'll call you tomorrow?"  
"What's going on?"  
Alex leaned passed Piper, expression unreadable. "Ask your boyfriend. C'mon Pipes."

Piper hugged her friend goodnight, and she and Alex stepped outside into the brilliantly cold night.

"Larry?" Polly watched them leave, before turning to the last man standing.  
He shrugged. "I don't know what to say - I think she's changed. And I think that's Alex's influence."

Polly saw her friend's shape shift on the other side of the obscured, stained glass windows of the bar, and settled back into the seats they'd abandoned when Piper had arrived.  
Larry took hold of her hand and kissed her cheek.

Piper would be back soon enough. He was almost certain.

* * *

Alex yawned, her arm grazing against Piper's thigh as she stretched in the relative darkness of their bedroom.  
She never liked getting up, and enjoyed it even less when it was winter, and chilly, and she was getting up for work, of all the godforsaken reasons to be awake.  
At least it was the weekend.

She opened one bleary eye reluctantly, and saw Piper's profile illuminated in the darkness, the long curtains of her hair framing the mobile she cradled in her hands as she perched on the edge of the bed.

"Pipes." Alex whispered into the darkness, the name drifting away from her.

Her girlfriend turned towards her in bed, the outline of her body fuzzy in the low light, shifting like static on an old television set.

"Alex." Piper answered, and the brunette could hear the smile in her voice.

"Have I told you that I adore you?"  
Piper deposited her phone on the bedstand and leaned in for an early morning kiss. "I like you best when you're sleepy and sentimental."  
"You mean somnolent and soppy?"  
"I meant what I said." Piper grinned into the early morning gloom.  
"So did I," Alex countered, blinking the sleep from her eyes in favour of seeing Piper more clearly. She'd take this woman's face in favour of a lie-in any day. "But I  _do_  adore you."  
Piper snuggled down against her shoulder, and Alex wrapped her arm around the younger woman, pulling her closer until Piper's head rested on her chest.  
"Then you  _have_  told me that you adore me. Just now." Piper nuzzled in, impossibly close, and Alex could feel her breath ghosting across her bare skin.  
"But, have I told you..." Alex paused, tilting her head back until all she could see was the pale expanse of the ceiling above them, a tundra of arsenic white in the cold, low light of the room. "That I love you?"

The seconds of silence that followed Alex's admission seemed to stretch for years, and Alex was sure for a moment that time itself had stopped.

"You do?" Piper's voice seemed smaller, and so far away. Anxiety bubbled up in the brunette's chest, but before Alex could answer, Piper completed her own enquiry. "Because I love you. Too."

She glanced up, and saw Alex's eyes shining.  
"Yeah?" The older woman asked.  
"I do. Do you?"  
"I do."  
Another pause stretched between them until Alex laughed, relieved. "Those were terrible wedding vows."  
Piper giggled. "It's okay. We've got plenty of time to work on them."

They slipped back into stillness for a moment before Piper piped up again.   
"I sort of thought you'd never say it."  
"What?"  
" _I love you_. You just… I don't know."

Piper nestled into Alex again, even though she had nowhere left to nuzzle.  
Alex resisted the urge to bristle, a little uncomfortable following Piper's statement.

"Did you think I  _didn't_  love you?"  
"No, I just thought..." Another false start. This time Piper opted to rally rather than flee. "I think I thought you weren't the type? To say it, I mean. I think I thought it would just always go unsaid."  
"Did you not want to say it first?"  
"I didn't want to put you on the spot. Because, what if you didn't?"  
"What?"  
"Love me."  
"But I do." Alex could feel them going around in circles.  
"I know. I know that now."

Piper sighed into her skin. Why were they always over complicating things?  
She glanced up at Alex from beneath her lashes, but the brunette seemed distant, preoccupied, eyes still affixed on the blank space above them.

"Alex." She whispered, much as Alex herself had done earlier.  
Alex lifted her head, only just able to see the woman burrowed into her chest. "Yeah?"

Piper leaned up then, their lips meeting.  
She ran her fingers through Alex's hair, and all resistance seemed to dissipate from Alex's body as she leaned into the kiss.  
Piper had her then, she knew.

"We've got time." She teased, hand inching lower as Alex released a soft laugh.  
"What time even is it?"  
"Well, it was half four when you said my name."  
" _Fuck_. It feels like it's been five minutes since we were walking away from your asshole ex." No wonder Alex felt tired. "Why are we even awake?"  
Alex could hear the smirk in Piper's voice when she replied. "So that we can do  _this..._ "

Alex gasped involuntarily as Piper's fingers slipped between her thighs, her hips lifting from the mattress as Piper's thumbnail brushed against her clit.

"Still love me now?"  
Alex shivered against Piper's hand, catching her breath to respond with words. "Yeah. Maybe even a little more than before."  
"And what about  _now_?"

As Piper spoke, she nudged Alex's legs further apart, giving her greater access. Alex rolled her hips in response, chest rising and falling rapidly, breathing already becoming laboured.

"Pipes..." Alex exhaled, her breath a warm wind in the room's chill, Piper's cold fingers exploring each sensitive angle, reaching all the right places as she pressed two digits into Alex's hot entrance. "Babe, please."  
"You want me to fuck you Alex?"  
Alex laughed, voice hoarse. "You know that I want -"  
"Then ask me." Piper cut her off, a wicked curve at the corner of her smile, her tone all kinds of mischief. "Ask me  _nicely_."  
"Piper."  
"Yes, Alex?" Piper replied, light and innocent as her hand slid deeper, spreading Alex in a way that simultaneously ached and made her arch her back.  
"Make me cum? Please?"

Alex threaded her fingers through Piper's hair, pulling the blonde close enough that they could kiss, and Piper curled her hand into Alex.  
The heel of her palm grazed Alex's delicate bud, flushed with blood, and Alex moaned into Piper's mouth.  
Piper could feel her need, her hunger, and pressed herself deeper, marveling as Alex breathed out her name, heady and desperate.

 _Yes,_  thought Piper.  _This was definitely love._


End file.
